Jonah 3–4

Chapter 3

Nineveh Repents

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

²“Arise, go to ^aNineveh the great city and ^bproclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you.”

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

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

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

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

⁷He issued a ^aproclamation and it said, “In Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let man, beast, herd, or flock taste a thing. Do not let them eat or drink water.

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

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

¹⁰When God saw their deeds, that they ^aturned from their wicked way, then ^bGod relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would ¹bring upon them. And He did not do it.

Chapter 4

Jonah’s Displeasure Rebuked

¹But it greatly displeased Jonah and he became ^aangry.

²He ^aprayed to the Lord and said, “Please Lord, was not this ¹what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore ²in order to forestall this I ^bfled 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 calamity.

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

⁴The Lord said, “Do you have good reason to be angry?”

⁵Then Jonah went out from the city and sat east of ¹it. There he made a shelter for himself and ^asat under it in the shade until he could see what would happen in the city.

⁶So the Lord God appointed a ¹plant and it grew up over Jonah to be a shade over his head to deliver him from his discomfort. And Jonah was ²extremely happy about the plant.

⁷But God appointed a worm when dawn came the next day and it attacked the plant and it ^awithered.

⁸When the sun came up God appointed a scorching ^aeast wind, and the ^bsun beat down on Jonah’s head so that he became faint and begged with all his soul to die, saying, “^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 the Lord said, “You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which ¹came up overnight and perished ²overnight.

¹¹“Should I not ^ahave compassion 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 ^canimals?”