Jonah 3–4

The People of Nineveh Repent at Jonah’s Proclamation

3And the word of Yahweh came to Jonah a second time, saying, ²“Get up! Go to Nineveh, the great city, and proclaim to it the message that I am telling you.” ³So Jonah got up^a and went to Nineveh according to the word of Yahweh. Now Nineveh was an extraordinarily great city^b—a journey of three days across.^{c 4}And Jonah began to go into the city a journey of one day, and he cried out and said, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be demolished!”^{d 5}And the people of Nineveh believed in God, and they proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth—from the greatest of them to the least important.^e

The King’s Proclamation

⁶And the news reached the king of Nineveh, and he rose from his throne and removed his royal robe, put on sackcloth, and sat in the ashes. ⁷And he had a proclamation made, and said,

“In Nineveh, by a decree of the king and his nobles:

“No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything! They must not eat, and they must not drink water! ⁸And the human beings and the animals must be covered with sackcloth! And they must call forcefully to God, and each must turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his^f hands. ⁹Who knows? God may relent and change his mind and turn from his blazing anger^g so that^h we will not perish.”

¹⁰And God saw their deeds—that they turned from their evil ways—and God changed his mind about the evil that he had said he would bring upon them, and he did not do it.ⁱ

Jonah Is Angry at Yahweh’s Compassion

4And this^a was greatly displeasing^b to Jonah, and he became furious.^{c 2}And he prayed to Yahweh and said, “O Yahweh, was this not what I said^d while I was in my homeland? Therefore I originally fled^e to Tarshish, because I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and having great steadfast love,^f and one who relents concerning calamity.^{g 3}And so then, Yahweh, please take my life from me, because for me death is better than life!” ⁴And Yahweh said, “Is it right for you to be angry?”^h

⁵And Jonah went out from the city and sat down east of the city, and he made for himself a shelter there. And he sat under it in the shade, waiting to seeⁱ what would happen with the city. ⁶And Yahweh God appointed a plant,^j and he made it grow up over Jonah to be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. And Jonah was very glad^k about the plant. ⁷So God appointed a worm at daybreak^l the next day, and it attacked the plant, and it withered. ⁸And when the sun rose,^m God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah’s head and he grew faint. And he asked that he could dieⁿ and said, “My death is better than my life!” ⁹So God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry^o about the plant?” And he said, “It is right for me to be angry enough to die!”^p

¹⁰But Yahweh said, “You are troubled about the plant, for which you did not labor nor cause it to grow. It grew up in a night and it perished in a night!^{q 11}And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, the great city, in which there are^r more than one hundred and twenty thousand^s people who do not know right from left,^t plus many animals?”