⁴ The camp followers with them had a strong craving, and the Israelites also wept again and said, “If only we had meat to eat!^{(A) 5} We remember the fish we used to eat in Egypt for nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic,^{(B) 6} but now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.”^(C)

⁷ Now the manna was like coriander seed, and its color was like the color of gum resin.^{(D) 8} The people went around and gathered it, ground it in mills or beat it in mortars, then boiled it in pots and made cakes of it, and the taste of it was like the taste of cakes baked with oil. ⁹ When the dew fell on the camp in the night, the manna would fall with it.^(E)

¹⁰ Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families, all at the entrances of their tents. Then the Lord became very angry, and Moses was displeased.^{(F) 11} So Moses said to the Lord, “Why have you treated your servant so badly? Why have I not found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me?

¹⁸ And say to the people, ‘Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat, for you have wailed in the hearing of the Lord, saying, “If only we had meat to eat! Surely it was better for us in Egypt.” Therefore the Lord will give you meat, and you shall eat.^{(A) 19} You shall eat not only one day, or two days, or five days, or ten days, or twenty days,^{(B) 20} but for a whole month, until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you—because you have rejected the Lord who is among you and have wailed before him, saying, “Why did we ever leave Egypt?” ’ ”