Numbers 11:4-15 - Complaints About Food

⁴ And the mixed band of people who went with them were overcome by desire: and the children of Israel, weeping again, said, Who will give us flesh for our food? ⁵ Sweet is the memory of the fish we had in Egypt for nothing, and the fruit and green plants of every sort, sharp and pleasing to the taste: ⁶ But now our soul is wasted away; there is nothing at all: we have nothing but this manna before our eyes.

⁷ Now the manna was like a seed of grain, like small clear drops. ⁸ The people went about taking it up from the earth, crushing it between stones or hammering it to powder, and boiling it in pots, and they made cakes of it: its taste was like the taste of cakes cooked with oil. ⁹ When the dew came down on the tents at night, the manna came down with it.

¹⁰ And at the sound of the people weeping, every man at his tent-door, the wrath of the Lord was great, and Moses was very angry. ¹¹ And Moses said to the Lord, Why have you done me this evil? and why have I not grace in your eyes, that you have put on me the care of all this people? ¹² Am I the father of all this people? have I given them birth, that you say to me, Take them in your arms, like a child at the breast, to the land which you gave by an oath to their fathers? ¹³ Where am I to get flesh to give to all this people? For they are weeping to me and saying, Give us flesh for our food. ¹⁴ I am not able by myself to take the weight of all this people, for it is more than my strength. ¹⁵ If this is to be my fate, put me to death now in answer to my prayer, if I have grace in your eyes; and let me not see my shame.