David Takes the Consecrated Bread

(Matthew 12:1–8, Mark 2:23–28, Luke 6:1–5)

Then David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. And when Ahimelech met David, he trembled and asked him,“ Why [are] you alone? Why is no one with you?”

2 

“ The king has given me a mission,” David replied“ He told me vvv no one is to know about the mission on which I am sending you And I have directed [my] young men to meet me at a certain place 3 Now then, what do you have on hand? Give [me] five [loaves of] bread, or whatever can be found.”

4 

“ [There is] no common bread on hand,” the priest replied but there is some consecrated bread — provided that the young men have kept themselves from women.”

5 

David answered“ Women [have] indeed [been] kept from us as is usual when I set out. And the bodies of the young men are holy even on common missions. How much more so today!”

6 

So the priest gave him the consecrated [bread], since there was no bread there but the Bread of the Presence, which had been removed from before the LORD and replaced with hot bread on the day it was taken away.

7 

Now one of Saul’s servants was there that day, detained before the LORD. And his name [was] Doeg the Edomite, the chief shepherd for Saul.

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