¹⁶ He would gladly have filled his stomach^[a] with the pods that the pigs were eating, and no one gave him anything. ¹⁷ But when he came to his senses he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!

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?” ’ ”

⁵ The people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.”^(A)

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)

⁹ “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?”