¹⁹ Why should we perish before your eyes^(A)—we and our land as well? Buy us and our land in exchange for food,^(B) and we with our land will be in bondage to Pharaoh.^(C) Give us seed so that we may live and not die,^(D) and that the land may not become desolate.”

³ The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt!^(A) There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food^(B) we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”^(C)