Numbers 11:14-28

¹⁴I can't go on carrying all these people by myself—it's just too much.

¹⁵If this is the way you're going to treat me, then please just kill me now so I don't have to face how depressed I've become. Please grant me this one request.”

¹⁶The Lord told Moses, “Bring before me seventy Israelite elders who you know are repected as leaders by the people Take them to the Tent of Meeting. They will stand there with you.

¹⁷I will come down and talk with you there. I will take some of the Spirit you have and give it to them. They will take some of the responsibility for the people so you won't have to bear it alone.

¹⁸Tell the people: Purify yourselves, for tomorrow you'll have meat to eat, because you were complaining and the Lord heard you saying, ‘Who's going to get us some meat to eat? We were better off in Egypt!’ So the Lord is going to provide you with meat to eat.

¹⁹You're going to eat it, not for just a day or two, and not for five or ten or twenty days.

²⁰You're going to eat it for a whole month until it makes you vomit and it comes out through your nostrils, because you have rejected the Lord who is right here with you, complaining to him by saying, ‘Why on earth did we ever leave Egypt?’”

²¹But Moses replied, “Here I am with 600,000 people and you're telling me, ‘I'm going to give them meat and they'll eat it for a month’?

²²Even if all our flocks and herds were slaughtered, would that be enough for them? Even if all the fish in the sea were caught, would that be enough for them?”

²³“Doesn't the Lord have the power to do that?” the Lord responded. “Now you're going to find out whether what I've said will happen or not!”

²⁴Moses went and shared with the people what the Lord said. He summoned seventy elders of the people and had them stand around the tent.

²⁵Then the Lord came down and talked to him. The Lord took some of the Spirit Moses had and gave it to them. They prophesied, but this didn't ever happen again.

²⁶However, two men named Eldad and Medad had stayed behind in the camp. The Spirit came on them too. (They had been put on the list of the seventy elders, but they hadn't gone to the tent. But they prophesied where they were in the camp anyway.)

²⁷A young lad ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.”

²⁸Joshua, son of Nun, who had been Moses' assistant since he was young, reacted, saying, “Moses, my lord, you have to stop them!”