Seventy Elders Anointed

¹⁶ The Lord answered Moses, “Bring me seventy men from Israel known to you as elders and officers of the people. Take them to the tent of meeting and have them stand there with you. ¹⁷ Then I will come down and speak with you there. I will take some of the Spirit who is on you and put the Spirit on them.^(A) They will help you bear the burden of the people, so that you do not have to bear it by yourself.^(B)

¹⁸ “Tell the people: Consecrate yourselves in readiness for tomorrow, and you will eat meat because you wept in the Lord’s hearing, ‘Who will feed us meat? We were better off in Egypt.’ The Lord will give you meat and you will eat. ¹⁹ You will eat, not 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 becomes nauseating to you—because you have rejected the Lord who is among you, and wept before him, ‘Why did we ever leave Egypt?’” ^(C)

²¹ But Moses replied, “I’m in the middle of a people with six hundred thousand foot soldiers,^(D) yet you say, ‘I will give them meat, and they will eat for a month.’ ²² If flocks and herds were slaughtered for them, would they have enough? Or if all the fish in the sea were caught for them, would they have enough?” ^(E)

²³ The Lord answered Moses, “Is the Lord’s arm weak?^[a](F) Now you will see whether or not what I have promised will happen to you.”

²⁴ Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord. He brought seventy men from the elders of the people and had them stand around the tent. ²⁵ Then the Lord descended in the cloud and spoke to him.^(G) He took some of the Spirit who was on Moses and placed the Spirit on the seventy elders. As the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied,^(H) but they never did it again.