Then David came to Nob to Ahimelech the priest. Ahimelech came to meet David trembling, and said to him, "Why are you alone, and no man with you?"

David said to Ahimelech the priest, "The king has commanded me a business, 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.'

David said to Ahimelech, "Isn't there here under your hand spear or sword? For I have neither brought my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king's business required haste."

Then Doeg the Edomite, who stood by the servants of Saul, answered and said, "I saw the son of Jesse coming to Nob, to Ahimelech the son of Ahitub.

Then the king sent to call Ahimelech the priest, the son of Ahitub, and all his father's house, the priests who were in Nob: and they came all of them to the king.

Then Ahimelech answered the king, and said, "Who among all your servants is so faithful as David, who is the king's son-in-law, and is taken into your council, and is honorable in your house?

The king said, "You shall surely die, Ahimelech, you, and all your father's house."

One of the sons of Ahimelech, the son of Ahitub, named Abiathar, escaped, and fled after David.

It happened, when Abiathar the son of Ahimelech fled to David to Keilah, that he came down with an ephod in his hand.

Then answered David and said to Ahimelech the Hittite, and to Abishai the son of Zeruiah, brother to Joab, saying, "Who will go down with me to Saul to the camp?" Abishai said, "I will go down with you."

David said to Abiathar the priest, the son of Ahimelech, "Please bring me here the ephod." Abiathar brought the ephod to David.

and Zadok the son of Ahitub, and Ahimelech the son of Abiathar, were priests; and Seraiah was scribe;

David with Zadok of the sons of Eleazar, and Ahimelech of the sons of Ithamar, divided them according to their ordering in their service.

And Shemaiah the son of Nethanel the scribe, who was of the Levites, wrote them in the presence of the king, and the officiers, and Zadok the priest, and Ahimelech the son of Abiathar, and the heads of the ancestral houses of the priests and of the Levites; one fathers' house being taken for Eleazar, and one taken for Ithamar.

These likewise cast lots even as their brothers the sons of Aaron in the presence of David the king, and Zadok, and Ahimelech, and the heads of the ancestral houses of the priests and of the Levites; the ancestral houses of the chief even as those of his younger brother.