¹⁶ The Lord said to Moses: “Bring me seventy of Israel’s elders^(A) who are known to you as leaders and officials among the people.^(B) Have them come to the tent of meeting,^(C) that they may stand there with you. ¹⁷ I will come down and speak with you^(D) there, and I will take some of the power of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them.^(E) They will share the burden of the people with you so that you will not have to carry it alone.^(F)

¹⁸ “Tell the people: ‘Consecrate yourselves^(G) in preparation for tomorrow, when you will eat meat. The Lord heard you when you wailed,^(H) “If only we had meat to eat! We were better off in Egypt!”^(I) Now the Lord will give you meat,^(J) and you will eat it. ¹⁹ You will not eat it for just one day, or two days, or five, ten or twenty days, ²⁰ but for a whole month—until it comes out of your nostrils and you loathe it^(K)—because you have rejected the Lord,^(L) who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying, “Why did we ever leave Egypt?”’”^(M)

²¹ But Moses said, “Here I am among six hundred thousand men^(N) on foot, and you say, ‘I will give them meat to eat for a whole month!’ ²² Would they have enough if flocks and herds were slaughtered for them? Would they have enough if all the fish in the sea were caught for them?”^(O)

²³ The Lord answered Moses, “Is the Lord’s arm too short?^(P) Now you will see whether or not what I say will come true for you.^(Q)”

³¹ Now a wind went out from the Lord and drove quail^(A) in from the sea. It scattered them up to two cubits^[a] deep all around the camp, as far as a day’s walk in any direction. ³² All that day and night and all the next day the people went out and gathered quail. No one gathered less than ten homers.^[b] Then they spread them out all around the camp.