David and the Priests

21 David came to Ahimelek the priest at Nob. When he came to meet David, Ahimelek was trembling with fear, and he said to David, “Why are you alone? Why isn’t there anyone with you?”^[a]

² David said to Ahimelek the priest, “The king sent me on a mission and told me, ‘Don’t let anyone know anything about where I am sending you or about your orders.’ I have instructed the young men to wait for me at a certain place. ³ So what do you have on hand? Please give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is available.”

⁴ The priest answered David, “I do not have any ordinary bread, but there is holy^[b] bread—I can give it to you^[c] only if your young men have kept themselves away from women.”^[d]

⁵ David answered the priest, “Yes indeed, women have been kept away from us just as they have been on previous occasions. Whenever I go out on a mission, the bodies^[e] of the young men are kept holy even if it is only an ordinary journey. How much more then shall their bodies be holy today?”

⁶ So the priest gave him holy bread, because there was no bread there except for the Bread of the Presence which had been removed from the presence of the Lord and replaced with hot bread.

Psalm 122

The Peace of Jerusalem

Heading
A song of the ascents. By David.

The Peace of Jerusalem

Lord of the Sabbath

²³ Once on a Sabbath day, Jesus was passing through the grain fields, and his disciples began to pick heads of grain as they walked along. ²⁴ The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath day?”

²⁵ He replied to them, “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and hungry (he and his companions)? ²⁶ He entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest and ate the Bread of the Presence, which is not lawful for anyone to eat, except for the priests. He also gave some to his companions.”

²⁷ Then Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. ²⁸ So the Son of Man is the Lord even of the Sabbath.”

¹³ Even when you were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ by forgiving us all our trespasses. ¹⁴ God erased the record of our debt brought against us by his legal demands. This record stood against us, but he took it away by nailing it to the cross. ¹⁵ After disarming the rulers and authorities, he made a public display of them by triumphing over them in Christ.

Paul Addresses the False Teaching

¹⁶ Therefore, do not let anyone judge you in regard to food or drink, or in regard to a festival or a New Moon or a Sabbath day. ¹⁷ These are a shadow of the things that were coming, but the body belongs to Christ.