Jonah 3:1–4:11

And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying, 2 Arise, go unto aNineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. 3 So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now aNineveh was an †exceeding great city of three days’ journey. 4 And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and bNineveh shall be overthrown. 5 So cthe people of Nineveh believed God, and dproclaimed a fast, and eput on sackcloth, ffrom the greatest of them even to the least of them. 6 For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and ghe arose from his throne, and he laid hhis robe from him, and eicovered him with sackcloth, and ijsat in ashes. 7 And he kcaused it to be proclaimed and †published through Nineveh by lthe decree of the king and his †nobles, saying, Let neither man nor mbeast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water: 8 But let man and beast ebe covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, nlet them turn every one from his evil way, and from othe violence that is in their hands. 9 pqWho can tell if God will turn qand repent, and rturn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? 10 And God saw their works, that nsthey turned from their evil way; and stGod repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.

4 But ait displeased Jonah exceedingly, and bhe was very angry. 2 And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore cI fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art da gracious God, and demerciful, dslow to anger, and of great kindness, dand repentest thee of the evil. 3 Therefore now, fO Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for git is better for me to die than to live. 4 Then said the Lord, ||Doest thou well to be angry? 5 So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him ha booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city. 6 And the iLord God jprepared a ||†gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his agrief. So Jonah †was exceeding glad of the gourd. 7 But God jprepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. 8 And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God jprepared a ||vehement keast wind; and the sun lbeat upon the head of Jonah, that mhe fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, gIt is better for me to die than to live. 9 And God said to Jonah, ||Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, ||I do well to be angry, neven unto death. 10 Then said the Lord, Thou hast ||had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which †came up in a night, and perished in a night: 11 And should not I spare oNineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons pthat cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; qand also much cattle?