Numbers 11:1-35
11 And the people were doing what sounded to Jehovah like bemoaning misfortune; and Jehovah heard and was angry, and Jehovah’s fire burned among them and devoured in the edge of the camp.
2 And the people cried out to Moses, and Moses prayed to Jehovah and the fire went down.
3 And that place is named Tabeerah, “Burning,” because Jehovah’s fire burned among them.
4 And the camp-followers they had among them were taken with a craving; and the sons of Israel wept again too, saying “If we only had meat to eat!
5 We remember the fish we ate free in Egypt, the cucumbers, the watermelons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic;
6 and now our senses are dried up, there is nothing at all, except as we, look to the manna.”
7 (The manna was like coriander seed, and its look was like that of bdellium;
8 the people roved around and picked it up and ground it in a mill or pounded it in a mortar and boiled it in a pot and made it into biscuit, and its flavor was like that of shortbread;
9 and when the dew came down over the camp at night the manna came down over it.)
10 And Moses heard the people weeping clan by clan at the doors of their tents, and Jehovah was very angry, and Moses took it ill.
11 And Moses said to Jehovah “Why have you been so hard on your servant, and had such a grudge against me, as to lay on me the load of all this people?
12 Have I bred all this people in my body, or have I given birth to them, that you say to me ‘carry them in your bosom, as a foster-father carries a nursing baby,’ to the soil you swore to their fathers?
13 Where should I get meat to give to all this people, that they weep at me with ‘Give us meat to eat’?
14 I cannot carry all this people single-handed; it is too heavy for me.
15 If you are going to treat me like this, kill me outright if you have any friendly feeling for me, and let me not be seeing my misfortune.”
16 And Jehovah said to Moses “Collect seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders and marshals of the people, and take them with you to the Tent of Meeting and let them take their stand there with you,
17 and I will come down and speak with you there and take off part of the spirit that rests on you and place it on them, and they shall cooperate with you in carrying the load of this people, and you shall not have it to carry single-handed.
18 And to the people you shall say ‘Hallow yourselves for tomorrow, because your weeping, “If we only had meat to eat, because we were better off in Egypt,” is sounding in Jehovah’s ears, and Jehovah will give you meat and you shall eat.
19 It shall not be one day that you eat it, nor two days nor five days nor ten days nor twenty days;
20 * it shall be through a month, till it comes out at your noses and is sickening to you, since you have repudiated Jehovah who is in your midst and have wept before him with “What did we come out of Egypt for?”’”
21 But Moses said “Six hundred thousand of foot is the people I am in the midst of, and you say ‘I will give them meat that they shall eat for a month.’
22 Will there be slaughtered for them sheep and cattle that will suffice them, or will all the fish of the sea be brought together for them and will it suffice them?”
23 But Jehovah said to Moses “Is Jehovah’s arm short? now you shall see whether my words will come on you or not.”
24 And Moses went out and repeated Jehovah’s words to the people; and he collected seventy men of the elders of the people and had them stand around the Tent,
25 and Jehovah came down in the cloud and spoke to him and took off part of the spirit that rested on him and put it on the seventy elders. And when the spirit alighted on them they were under the power, but not thereafter.
26 And there remained behind in the camp two men, one named Eldad and the other Medad, and the spirit alighted on them, they being among those who were written down but not having gone out to the Tent, and they were under the power in the camp.
27 And a boy ran and told Moses “Eldad and Medad are under the power in the camp.”
28 And Joshuaʽ the son of Nun, Moses’s attendant since his young manhood, answered “My lord Moses, stop them.”
29 But Moses said to him “Are you jealous for me? I wish all Jehovah’s people were prophets because Jehovah would put his spirit on them!”
30 And Moses came back into the camp, he and the elders of Israel.
31 And a wind set out from Jehovah and brought along quails from the sea, and flung them down over the camp, about a day’s journey this way and a day’s journey that way around the camp, and about three feet above the surface of the ground.
32 And the people got up and gathered the quails all that day and all night and all the next day; the man who got least gathered a hundred bushels; and they spread them out around the camp to dry.
33 They had the flesh still between their teeth, it was not yet chewed to pieces, when Jehovah was angry with the people, and Jehovah struck the people down in very great numbers.
34 And that place is named Kibroth-hat-Taavah, “Craving’s Graves,” because there they buried the craving people.
35 And from Kibroth-hat-Taavah the people marched to Haseroth and were at Haseroth.
Footnotes
^ 11:20 Lit. without it shall be
