Jonah 3–4

¹And there is a word of Jehovah unto Jonah a second time, saying, ²‘Rise, go unto Nineveh, the great city, and proclaim unto it the proclamation that I am speaking unto thee;’ ³and Jonah riseth, and he goeth unto Nineveh, according to the word of Jehovah. And Nineveh hath been a great city before God, a journey of three days. ⁴And Jonah beginneth to go in to the city a journey of one day, and proclaimeth, and saith, ‘Yet forty days—and Nineveh is overturned.’

⁵And the men of Nineveh believe in God, and proclaim a fast, and put on sackcloth, from their greatest even unto their least, ⁶seeing the word doth come unto the king of Nineveh, and he riseth from his throne, and removeth his honourable robe from off him, and spreadeth out sackcloth, and sitteth on the ashes, ⁷and he crieth and saith in Nineveh by a decree of the king and his great ones, saying, ‘Man and beast, herd and flock—let them not taste anything, let them not feed, even water let them not drink; ⁸and cover themselves with sackcloth let man and beast, and let them call unto God mightily, and let them turn back each from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. ⁹Who knoweth? He doth turn back, and God hath repented, and hath turned back from the heat of His anger, and we do not perish.’ ¹⁰And God seeth their works, that they have turned back from their evil way, and God repenteth of the evil that He spake of doing to them, and he hath not done it.

Chapter 4

¹And it is grievous unto Jonah—a great evil—and he is displeased at it; ²and he prayeth unto Jehovah, and he saith, ‘I pray Thee, O Jehovah, is not this my word while I was in mine own land—therefore I was beforehand to flee to Tarshish—that I have known that Thou art a God, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in kindness, and repenting of evil? ³And now, O Jehovah, take, I pray Thee, my soul from me, for better is my death than my life.’ ⁴And Jehovah saith, ‘Is doing good displeasing to thee?’

⁵And Jonah goeth forth from the city, and sitteth on the east of the city, and maketh to himself there a booth, and sitteth under it in the shade, till that he seeth what is in the city. ⁶And Jehovah God appointeth a gourd, and causeth it to come up over Jonah, to be a shade over his head, to give deliverance to him from his affliction, and Jonah rejoiceth because of the gourd with great joy. ⁷And God appointeth a worm at the going up of the dawn on the morrow, and it smiteth the gourd, and it drieth up. ⁸And it cometh to pass, about the rising of the sun, that God appointeth a cutting east wind, and the sun smiteth on the head of Jonah, and he wrappeth himself up, and asketh his soul to die, and saith, ‘Better is my death than my life.’ ⁹And God saith unto Jonah: ‘Is doing good displeasing to thee, because of the gourd?’ and he saith, ‘To do good is displeasing to me—unto death.’ ¹⁰And Jehovah saith, ‘Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for which thou didst not labour, neither didst thou nourish it, which a son of a night was, and a son of a night perished, ¹¹and I—have not I pity on Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than twelve myriads of human beings, who have not known between their right hand and their left—and much cattle!’

Chapter 1