⁴ The ^[a]rabble among them [who followed Israel from Egypt] had greedy desires [for familiar and delicious food], and the Israelites wept again and said, “Who will give us meat to eat? ⁵ We remember the fish we ate freely and without cost in Egypt, the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic. ⁶ But now our ^[b]appetite is gone; there is nothing at all [in the way of food] ^[c]to be seen but this manna.”

⁷ The manna was like coriander seed, and it looked like ^[d]bdellium. ⁸ The people went about and gathered it, and ground it in mills or beat it in mortars, and boiled it in pots, and made cakes with it; and it tasted like cakes baked with fresh [olive] oil. ⁹ When the dew fell on the camp at night, the manna fell with it.

The Complaint of Moses

¹⁰ Now Moses heard the people weeping [in self-pity] throughout their families, every man at the doorway of his tent; and the anger of the Lord blazed hotly, and ^[e]Moses regarded their behavior as evil. ¹¹ So Moses said to the Lord, “Why have You been so hard on Your servant? And why have I not found favor in Your sight, that You have placed the burden of all these people on me? ¹² Was it I who conceived all these people? Was it I who brought them forth, that You should say to me, ‘Carry them in your ^[f]arms as a nurse carries the nursing infant, to the land which You swore to their fathers’? ¹³ Where am I to get meat to give to all these people? For they weep before me and say, ‘Give us meat, so that we may eat.’