18 ‘Tell the people: “Consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow, when you will eat meat. The Lord heard you when you wailed, ‘If only we had meat to eat! We were better off in Egypt!’ Now the Lord will give you meat, and you will eat it.
19 You will not eat it for just one day, or two days, or five, ten or twenty days,
20 but for a whole month – until it comes out of your nostrils and you loathe it – because you have rejected the Lord, who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying, ‘Why did we ever leave Egypt?’ ” ’
21 But Moses said, ‘Here I am among six hundred thousand men on foot, and you say, “I will give them meat to eat for a whole month!”
22 Would they have enough if flocks and herds were slaughtered for them? Would they have enough if all the fish in the sea were caught for them?’
23 The Lord answered Moses, ‘Is the Lord’s arm too short? Now you will see whether or not what I say will come true for you.’
24 So Moses went out and told the people what the Lord had said. He brought together seventy of their elders and made them stand round the tent.