14. This job is too much for me. How can I take care of all these people by myself?
15. If this is the way you're going to treat me, just kill me now and end my miserable life!
16. The Lord said to Moses:Choose seventy of Israel's respected leaders and go with them to the sacred tent.
17. While I am talking with you there, I will give them some of your authority, so they can share responsibility for my people. You will no longer have to care for them by yourself.
18. As for the Israelites, I have heard them complaining about not having meat and about being better off in Egypt. So tell them to make themselves acceptable to me, because tomorrow they will have meat.
19-20. In fact, they will have meat day after day for a whole month—not just a few days, or even ten or twenty. They turned against me and wanted to return to Egypt. Now they will eat meat until they get sick of it.
21. Moses replied, “At least six hundred thousand grown men are here with me. How can you say there will be enough meat to feed them and their families for a whole month?
22. Even if we butchered all our sheep and cattle, or caught every fish in the sea, we wouldn't have enough to feed them.”
23. The Lord answered, “I can do anything! Watch and you'll see my words come true.”
24. Moses told the people what the Lord had said. Then he chose seventy respected leaders and went with them to the sacred tent. While the leaders stood in a circle around the tent, Moses went inside,
25. and the Lord spoke with him. Then the Lord took some authority from Moses and gave it to the seventy leaders. And when the Lord's Spirit took control of them, they started shouting like prophets. But they did it only this one time.
26. Eldad and Medad were two leaders who had not gone to the tent. But when the Spirit took control of them, they began shouting like prophets there in camp.