Numbers 11

1 And the people were grumbling wickedly before the Lord; and the Lord heard them and was very angry, and fire was kindled among them from the Lord and ate up part of the camp. 2 And the people cried out to Moses, and Moses prayed to the Lord, and the fire died down. 3 And the name of that place was called Burning, because a fire had been kindled among them from the Lord. [a]

4 And the mixed crowd among them was seized with craving; and they and the children of Israel sat down and wept and said, 4 “Who will give us meat to eat? 5 We remember the fish we used to eat in Egypt for nothing, and the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the garlic and the onions. 6 But now our soul is dried up. There is nothing at all for our eyes but the manna.” 7 And the manna was like coriander seed, and it looked like frost. 8 And the people went about and gathered it, and ground it in a mill or pounded it in a mortar, and boiled it in a pot and made cakes of it; and the taste of it was like a wafer made with oil. 9 And when the dew came down on the camp at night, the manna came down on it too.

10 And Moses heard them weeping by their families, each man at his own door; and the Lord was very angry, and the thing was bad in Moses' eyes. 11 And Moses said to the Lord, 11 “Why have you dealt so hard with your servant? Why have I not found favor in your sight, that you should lay the weight of all this people on me? 12 Did I conceive all this people? Did I give birth to them, that you say to me, ‘Take them into your arms as a nurse carries a baby at the breast,’ into the land you swore to their fathers? 13 Where am I to get meat for all this people? For they weep at me and say, ‘Give us meat to eat.’ 14 I cannot carry all this people by myself. It is too heavy for me. 15 And if this is how you are going to deal with me, then kill me outright — if I have found mercy with you — so that I do not have to look at my own misery.”

16 And the Lord said to Moses, 16 “Gather me seventy men from the elders of Israel, men you yourself know to be elders of the people, and their scribes; and bring them to the tent of witness, and let them stand there with you. 17 And I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take some of the spirit that is on you and put it on them; and they will carry the weight of the people along with you, and you will not carry them alone. 18 And to the people you are to say: Make yourselves clean for tomorrow, and you will eat meat — because you wept before the Lord and said, ‘Who will give us meat to eat? We were well off in Egypt.’ So the Lord will let you eat meat, and you will eat meat. 19 You will not eat it for one day, or two days, or five days, or ten days, or twenty days, 20 but for a whole month, until it comes out of your nostrils and turns your stomach — because you disobeyed the Lord, who is among you, and wept in front of him and said, ‘Why did we ever come out of Egypt?’”

21 And Moses said, 21 “The people I am among are six hundred thousand on foot, and you say, ‘I will give them meat to eat, and they will eat for a whole month.’ 22 Are sheep and oxen to be slaughtered for them, and will that be enough for them? Or are all the fish of the sea to be gathered for them, and will that be enough for them?” 23 And the Lord said to Moses, 23 “Will the Lord's hand not be enough? Now you will see whether my word comes true for you or not.”

24 And Moses went out and spoke the words of the Lord to the people; and he gathered seventy men of the elders of the people and set them around the tent. 25 And the Lord came down in a cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy men who were elders; and when the spirit rested on them, they prophesied — and they did not do it again. [b]

26 And two men had stayed behind in the camp — the name of the one was Eldad and the name of the other Modad — and the spirit rested on them. They were among those on the list, but they had not come out to the tent, and they prophesied in the camp. [c] 27 And a young man ran and told Moses. He said, 27 “Eldad and Modad are prophesying in the camp.” 28 And Joshua son of Nun, who served Moses, his chosen man, said, 28 “My lord Moses, stop them.” 29 And Moses said to him, 29 “Are you jealous on my account? I wish that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them.” 30 And Moses went back into the camp, he and the elders of Israel.

31 And a wind went out from the Lord and brought quail across from the sea, and dropped them on the camp — a day's journey on this side and a day's journey on that side, all around the camp, about three feet above the ground. [d] 32 And the people were up all that day and all that night and all the next day gathering quail; the one who gathered least gathered sixty bushels. And they spread them out for themselves all around the camp. [e] 33 The meat was still between their teeth, before it was gone, when the Lord grew angry with the people, and the Lord struck the people with a very great plague. 34 And the name of that place was called the Graves of Craving, because there they buried the people who had craved. [f] 35 And the people set out from the Graves of Craving to Hazeroth; and the people halted at Hazeroth.