Numbers 11:16-25

International Children’s Bible

¹⁶ The Lord said to Moses, “Bring me 70 of Israel’s elders. Pick men you know are leaders among the people. Bring them to the Meeting Tent. Have them stand there with you. ¹⁷ I will come down and speak with you there. I will take some of the Spirit that is in you. And I will give it to them. They will help you care for the people. Then you will not have to care for them alone.

¹⁸ “Tell the people this: ‘Make yourselves holy. Tomorrow you will eat meat. The Lord heard you cry, “We want meat! We were better off in Egypt!” So now the Lord will give you meat to eat. ¹⁹ You will not eat it for just 1, 2, 5, 10 or even 20 days. ²⁰ You will eat that meat for a whole month. You will eat it until it comes out your nose. You will hate it. This is because you have rejected the Lord. He is here with you. But you have cried to him. You said, “Why did we ever leave Egypt?”’”

²¹ Moses said, “Lord, here are 600,000 men standing around me. And you say, ‘I will give them enough meat to eat for a month!’ ²² If we killed all the sheep and cattle, that would not be enough. If we caught all the fish in the sea, that would not be enough.”

²³ But the Lord said to Moses, “Do you think I’m weak? You will see if I can do what I say.”

²⁴ So Moses went out to the people. He told them what the Lord had said. Moses gathered 70 of the elders together. He had them stand around the Tent. ²⁵ Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to Moses. The Lord took some of the Spirit Moses had. And he gave it to the 70 leaders. With the Spirit in them, they prophesied, but just that one time.