Exodus 16 and 17

Two months later, Mo & Co. enter the foreshadowly named town of Sin. Moses should have known something bad was going to happen from the town's welcome sign motto:

Sin: One Square Mile of People Bitchin' About the Dry Accommodations!

Not one to ignore a sign, the children of Israel finally realize that maybe, just maybe, Moses and Aaron are full of shit. They murmur among themselves about what a terrible decision it was to trade a life slavery for a life of starving to death in a desert.

"Would to God we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full," the children say, "for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger. Plus, cell phone reception out here is terrible."

God tells Moses that as a special favor to his chosen people he will make it rain bread. Every day there will enough bread for each person to eat his fill, except on the sixth day, when there will be twice as much the usual bread per person. Moses convinces Aaron to tell the flock about the free sand-covered bread, and Aaron can't resist sweetening the deal: in addition to morning bread, God will also provide evening meat in the form of quails. God, for once not wanting to look like the bad cop, agrees to the quail upgrade.

"And our Lord and God also shall provide free beer!" Aaron says. "And all the hot wings you can eat!"

"Tell ye brother not to push his luck," God tells Moses to tell Aaron.

In a purely socialist way, every Israelite "gathered every man according to his eating," and none was left wanting. Moses warns them not to stockpile the bread--an excusable instinct from people wasting away in a desert--but some don't listen. They find the next morning that the manna had bred worms overnight and now stinks. Starving, they eat the worms.

The sixth day brings double rations. Realizing that people may be wary of leftovers after the worms and stink, Moses reminds them that because the next day is the Sabbath and no one is allowed to perform any work, there will be no manna to gather. Repeat: there will be no manna to gather tomorrow!

Naturally, some Israelites gorged on manna the day before and wake up early Saturday morning with no breakfast. So, against God' explicit instructions, they head out in search of manna that is not there. God, you can imagine, is peeved.

"How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws? See, for that the LORD hath given you the sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days; abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day," He says to Moses. Which is why to this day no one does anything on the sabbath but stay inside their homes and read the Bible, as God hath commanded.

The Israelites existed on manna for 40 years, until they came to the land of Canaan. Remember that the next time you complain about your mom giving you the same lunch every day for school.

The children of Israel move from Sin to Rephidem, where murmurs about the quality of their leadership begin anew: "Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?"

Wait a minute. What are the cattle eating? And why don't the Israelites drink cow milk? And why haven't they eaten the cattle yet if they were so hungry?

God of course has a plan to get His Chosen People, the people he loves and adores, the ones he rescued from slavery, to shut up about food and water and just get the hell off his back already: "Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. Happy now, you whiny mob?" Breaking with tradition, Moses takes three witnesses with him to perform this miracle and everyone gets a drink of rock water.

Out of nowhere, Amalek, Esau's grandson, attacks the Israelites. Moses tasks Joshua with raising an army and fighting Amalek's clan. For his part, Moses watches the battle from the top of a hill with the rod of God in his hand. Moses tries to get everyone to do the wave and notices that whenever he raises his hands, Israel gains the upper hand in the battle, and when he lowers his hands, Amalek's band prevails. But crybaby Moses finds that it's really, really difficult to hold his arms in the air all day just to ensure his fellow country don't die, so Aaron and a guy named Hur hold up his arms until Israel wins!

God rewards the victory by promising a war with Amalek every generation. Moses wonders if maybe an Edible Arrangement might have been more appropriate.