Jonah 3–4

CHAPTER 3

Ninevites Turn from Their Evil Ways

¹Now the word of Yahweh came to Jonah the second time, saying,

²“Arise, go to ^aNineveh, the great city, and ^bcall out to it this very call which I am going to speak to you.”

³So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of Yahweh. Now Nineveh was ¹an ^aexceedingly great city, a three days’ walk.

⁴Then Jonah began to go into the city, one day’s walk; and he ^acalled out and said, “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.”

⁵And the ¹people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a ^afast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them.

⁶Then the word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, laid aside his mantle from him, ^acovered himself with sackcloth, and sat on the ¹ashes.

⁷And he ^acried out and said,

“In Nineveh by the ¹decree of the king and his nobles²: Do not let man, ³animal, herd, or flock taste a thing. Do not let them eat, and do not let them drink water.

⁸“But both man and ¹animal must be covered with sackcloth; and let ²men ^acall on God with their strength that each may ^bturn from his evil way and from the violence which is in ³his hands.

⁹“^aWho knows, God may turn and relent and turn away from His burning anger so that we will not perish.”

¹⁰Then God saw their works, that they ^aturned from their evil way, so ^bGod ¹relented concerning the evil which He had spoken He would ²bring upon them. And He did not ³bring it upon them.

CHAPTER 4

Jonah’s Anger

¹But this was a great evil to Jonah, and he became ^aangry.

²And he ^aprayed to Yahweh and said, “Ah! O Yahweh, was not this my word to myself while I was still in my own land? Therefore I went ahead to ^bflee to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a ^cgracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning evil.

³“So now, O Yahweh, please ^atake my ¹life from me, for death is ^bbetter to me than life.”

⁴And Yahweh said, “Do you have good reason to be angry?”

⁵Then Jonah went out from the city and sat east of the city. And there he made a booth for himself and ^asat under it in the shade until he could see what would happen in the city.

⁶So Yahweh God appointed a ¹plant, and it came up over Jonah to be a shade over his head to deliver him from his miserable evil. And Jonah was ²extremely glad about the plant.

⁷But God appointed a worm at the ¹breaking of dawn the next day, and it struck the plant, and ²it ^adried up.

⁸Then it happened that as the sun rose up, God appointed a scorching ^aeast wind, and the ^bsun struck down on Jonah’s head so that he became faint and asked with all his soul to die and said, “^cDeath is better to me than life.”

⁹Then God said to Jonah, “Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant?” And he said, “I have good reason to be angry, even to death.”

¹⁰Then Yahweh said, “You had pity on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which ¹came to be overnight and perished ²overnight.

¹¹“So should I not ^ahave pity on Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not ^bknow the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many ^1canimals?”