2David answered Ahimelech the priest, “The king charged me with a certain matter and said to me, ‘No one is to know anything about your mission and your instructions.’ As for my men, I have told them to meet me at a certain place.3Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever you can find.”

4But the priest answered David, “I don't have any ordinary bread on hand; however, there is some consecrated bread here—provided the men have kept themselves from women.”

5David replied, “Indeed women have been kept from us, as usual wheneverOr from us in the past few days since I set out. The men's thingsOr bodies are holy even on missions that are not holy. How much more so today!”