1 Samuel 21

Then Dawud came to Ahimelech the priest at Nob: and Ahimelech came to meet Dawud trembling, and said to him, Why are you alone, and no man with you? ²Dawud said to Ahimelech the priest, The king has given me orders, and has said to me, Let no man know anything of the business about which I send you, and what I have commanded you: and I have appointed the young men to such and such a place. ³Now therefore what is under your hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever there is present. ⁴The priest answered Dawud, and said, There is no ordinary bread under my hand, but there is holy bread; if only the young men have kept themselves from women. ⁵Dawud answered the priest, and said to him, Of a truth women have been kept from us about these three days; when I came out, the things of the young men were holy, even though it was but an ordinary journey; how much more then today shall their things be holy? ⁶So the priest gave him holy bread; for there was no bread there but the show bread, that was taken from before Allah, to put hot bread in the day when it was taken away. ⁷Now a certain man of the servants of Talut was there that day, detained before Allah; and his name was Doeg the Edomite, the best of the herdsmen who belonged to Talut. ⁸Dawud said to Ahimelech, Isn't there here under your hand a spear or sword? For I have neither brought my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king's business required haste. ⁹The priest said, The sword of Jalut the Philistine, whom you killed in the valley of Elah, is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod: if you will take that, take it; for there is no other except that here. Dawud said, There is none like it; give it me. ¹⁰Dawud arose, and fled that day for fear of Talut, and went to Achish the king of Gath. ¹¹The servants of Achish said to him, "Isn't this Dawud the king of the land? Didn't they sing one to another about him in dances, saying, 'Talut has slain his thousands, Dawud his tens of thousands?'" ¹²Dawud laid up these words in his heart, and was very afraid of Achish the king of Gath. ¹³He changed his behaviour before them, and pretended to be insane in their hands, and scratched on the doors of the gate, and let his saliva fall down on his beard. ¹⁴Then Achish said to his servants, Look, you see the man is insane; why then have you brought him to me? ¹⁵Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this fellow to play the madman in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house?