Numbers 11:13-34

¹³Where am I to get flesh to give to all this people? For they are weeping to me and saying, Give us flesh for our food.

¹⁴I am not able by myself to take the weight of all this people, for it is more than my strength.

¹⁵If this is to be my fate, put me to death now in answer to my prayer, if I have grace in your eyes; and let me not see my shame.

¹⁶And the Lord said to Moses, Send for seventy of the responsible men of Israel, who are in your opinion men of weight and authority over the people; make them come to the Tent of meeting and be there with you.

¹⁷And I will come down and have talk with you there: and I will take some of the spirit which is on you and put it on them, and they will take part of the weight of the people off you, so that you do not have to take it by yourself.

¹⁸And say to the people, Make yourselves clean before tomorrow and you will have flesh for your food: for in the ears of the Lord you have been weeping and saying, Who will give us flesh for food? for we were well off in Egypt: and so the Lord will give you flesh, and it will be your food;

¹⁹Not for one day only, or even for five or ten or twenty days;

²⁰But every day for a month, till you are tired of it, turning from it in disgust: because you have gone against the Lord who is with you, and have been weeping before him saying, Why did we come out of Egypt?

²¹Then Moses said, The people, among whom I am, are six hundred thousand men on foot; and you have said, I will give them flesh to be their food for a month.

²²Are flocks and herds to be put to death for them? or are all the fish in the sea to be got together so that they may be full?

²³And the Lord said to Moses, Has the Lord's hand become short? Now you will see if my word comes true for you or not.

²⁴And Moses went out and gave the people the words of the Lord: and he took seventy of the responsible men of the people, placing them round the Tent.

²⁵Then the Lord came down in the cloud and had talk with him, and put on the seventy men some of the spirit which was on him: now when the spirit came to rest on them, they were like prophets, but only at that time.

²⁶But two men were still in the tent-circle one of them named Eldad and the other Medad: and the spirit came to rest on them; they were among those who had been sent for, but they had not gone out to the Tent: and the prophet's power came on them in the tent-circle.

²⁷And a young man went running to Moses and said, Eldad and Medad are acting as prophets in the tent-circle.

²⁸Then Joshua, the son of Nun, who had been Moses' servant from the time when he was a child, said, My lord Moses, let them be stopped.

²⁹And Moses said to him, Are you moved by envy on my account? If only all the Lord's people were prophets, and the Lord might put his spirit on them!

³⁰Then Moses, with the responsible men of Israel, went back to the tent-circle.

³¹Then the Lord sent a wind, driving little birds from the sea, so that they came down on the tents, and all round the tent-circle, about a day's journey on this side and on that, in masses about two cubits high over the face of the earth.

³²And all that day and all night and the day after, the people were taking up the birds; the smallest amount which anyone got was ten homers: and they put them out all round the tents.

³³But while the meat was still between their teeth, before it was tasted, the wrath of the Lord was moved against the people and he sent a great outburst of disease on them.

³⁴So that place was named Kibroth-hattaavah; because there they put in the earth the bodies of the people who had given way to their desires.