Jonah chapter 1
Jonah flees from the Lord
1 The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai:
2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”
3 But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying his fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.
4 Then the Lord hurled a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up.
5 The sailors were terrified, and each cried out to his own god. So they threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it. But Jonah had gone down into the hold of the ship and was fast asleep.
6 The captain of the ship came to him and said, “What are you doing, sleeping? Get up and call on your God, Perhaps he will have compassion on us, and we will not perish.
7 Then they said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots, that we may know on whose account this calamity has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah.
8 Then they said to him, “Tell us, therefore, why this calamity has come upon us. What is your occupation, and where do you come from? What is your country, and from what people are you?”
9 He said to them, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land.”
10 And the men were exceedingly afraid, and said to him, “Why have you done this?” For they knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.
11 And they said to him, “What shall we do to you, that the sea may become calm for us?” For the sea was growing more and more stormy.
12 He said to them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea, and the sea will become calm for you; For I know that this great storm has come upon you because of me.
13 And those men labored to bring the ship back to land; but they could not, for the sea grew ever more raging against them.
14 Then they cried out to the Lord and said, “We beseech you, O Lord, that we do not perish for the life of this man, nor lay innocent blood upon us; for you, O Lord, have done as you pleased.”
15 So they took Jonah and threw him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging.
16 Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.
17 Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Jonah Chapter 2
Jonah's Prayer
1 Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from inside the fish,
2 and said: “In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me. From deep in the realm of the dead I cried for help, and you listened to my voice.
3 You hurled me into the depths, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me.
4 I said, ‘I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.’
5 The waters surrounded me, even to my neck; the deep engulfed me; seaweed was wrapped around my head.
6 I sank down to the foundations of the mountains; the earth closed in on me forever. But you, Lord my God, brought my life up from the pit.
7 When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple.
8 Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that is good.
9 But I, with a voice of thanksgiving, will offer sacrifices to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord.
10 Then the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.
Jonah Chapter 3
Nineveh repents
1 The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time:
2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”
3 Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city; it took three days to go through it.
4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey, and he proclaimed, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.”
5 The people of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them.
6 When this news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
7 Then he issued a proclamation throughout Nineveh, by the decree of the king and his nobles: “Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; Let them not be given food or water to drink.
8 But let both man and beast be covered with sackcloth and cry earnestly to God. Let everyone turn from their evil ways and from the violence in their hands.
9 Who knows? God may yet relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we do not perish.
10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the disaster he had said he would do.
Jonah Chapter 4
Jonah's anger
1 But Jonah was greatly distressed and angry.
2 He prayed to the Lord, “O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.
3 Now, O Lord, please take my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
4 But the Lord said to him, “Is it right for you to be angry?”
5 So Jonah left the city and camped east of it. There he made himself a shelter and sat in its shade to see what would happen to the city.
6 Then the Lord God provided a gourd vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head and to deliver him from his discomfort. And Jonah rejoiced greatly over the gourd.
7 But at dawn the next day, God provided a worm, which attacked the gourd, and it withered.
8 And it happened that when the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah’s head, so that he grew faint and wished to die, saying, “It would be better for me to die than to live.”
9 Then God said to Jonah, “Are you so angry about the gourd?” And he said, “I am so angry as to die.”
10 Then the Lord said, “You cared about the gourd, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which sprang up in a night and perished in a night.
11 And should I not have compassion on Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and also much livestock?”
