³ The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by pots of meat and ate all the bread we wanted. Instead, you brought us into this wilderness to make this whole assembly die of hunger!” ^(A)

Complaints about Food

⁴ The riffraff^[a] among them^(A) had a strong craving^(B) for other food. The Israelites wept again and said, “Who will feed us meat?

³ Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to die by the sword? Our wives and children will become plunder.^(A) Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?” ^{(B) 4} So they said to one another, “Let’s appoint a leader and go back to Egypt.”

⁸ “‘But they rebelled against me and were unwilling to listen to me. None of them threw away the abhorrent things that they prized,^[a] and they did not abandon the idols of Egypt. So I considered pouring out my wrath on them,^(A) exhausting my anger against them within the land of Egypt.

²⁴ For they did not practice my ordinances but rejected my statutes and profaned my Sabbaths, and their eyes were fixed^(A) on their fathers’ idols.