Numbers 11:16-25

Modern English Version

The Seventy Elders

¹⁶ Then the Lord said to Moses, “Gather to Me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people, and officers over them, and bring them to the tent of meeting, that they may take a stand there with you. ¹⁷ And I will come down, and I will speak with you there, and I will take of the Spirit which is on you and will put it on them, and they will bear the burden of the people with you, and you will not bear it by yourself.

¹⁸ “And say to the people: Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat, for you have wept in the hearing of the Lord, saying, ‘Who will give us meat to eat? For it was better for us in Egypt.’ Therefore the Lord will give you meat, and you shall eat. ¹⁹ You shall eat, not one day, or two days, or five days, or ten days, or twenty days, ²⁰ but a whole month, until it comes out at your nostrils, and it will be nauseating to you because you rejected the Lord who is among you and have wept before Him, saying, ‘Why did we come out of Egypt?’ ”

²¹ And Moses said, “The people I am with number six hundred thousand foot soldiers, and You have said, ‘I will give them meat that they may eat a whole month.’ ²² Will the flocks and the herds be slaughtered for them, to satisfy them? Or will all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them, to satisfy them?”

²³ And the Lord said to Moses, “Is the hand of the Lord shortened? Now you will see if My word will happen to you or not.”

²⁴ Moses went out, and he spoke to the people the words of the Lord and gathered the seventy men of the elders of the people and set them around the tabernacle. ²⁵ And the Lord came down in a cloud, and spoke to him, and took of the Spirit that was on him, and gave it to the seventy elders, and when the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied, but did not do it again.