12. Have I conceived all this people? Have I given them birth, that You should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse bears the nursing child,’ to the land which You swore to their fathers?
13. Where am I to get meat to give to all these people? For they weep to me, saying, ‘Give us meat, that we may eat.’
14. I am not able to bear all these people alone, because the burden is too heavy for me.
15. If You do this to me, please kill me at once, if I have found favor in Your eyes, and do not let me see my misery.”
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.
26. But two men remained in the camp. The name of one was Eldad, and the name of the other, Medad. And the Spirit rested on them. They were among those listed, but they had not gone out to the tent, and so they prophesied in the camp.
27. And a young man ran and told Moses and said, “Eldad and Medad prophesy in the camp.”
28. Then Joshua the son of Nun, the assistant of Moses from his youth, answered and said, “My lord Moses, forbid them.”
29. Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Oh, that all the people of the Lord were prophets, and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them!”
30. And Moses returned to the camp, he and the elders of Israel.