Numbers 11:10-16

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

¹⁰ Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families, all at the entrances of their tents. Then the Lord became very angry, and Moses was displeased.^{(A) 11} So Moses said to the Lord, “Why have you treated your servant so badly? Why have I not found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me? ¹² Did I conceive all this people? Did I give birth to them, that you should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom as a wet nurse carries a nursing child, to the land that you promised on oath to their ancestors’?^{(B) 13} Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they come weeping to me, saying, ‘Give us meat to eat!’^{(C) 14} I am not able to carry all this people alone, for they are too heavy for me.^{(D) 15} If this is the way you are going to treat me, put me to death at once—if I have found favor in your sight—and do not let me see my misery.”^(E)

The Seventy Elders

¹⁶ So the Lord said to Moses, “Gather for me seventy of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them; bring them to the tent of meeting and have them take their place there with you.^(F)