But Jonah ran away to Tarshish to escape from the presence of the Lord [and his duty as His prophet]. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish [the most remote of the Phoenician trading cities]. So he paid the fare and went down into the ship to go with them to Tarshish away from the presence of the Lord.

Then the LORD sent a great wind over the sea, and a severe storm broke out. It seemed as if the ship were about to break up.

Then the men became extremely frightened and said to him, “How could you do this?” For the men knew that he was running from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.

Wherefore they cried unto the LORD, and said, We beseech thee, O LORD, we beseech thee, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not upon us innocent blood: for thou, O LORD, hast done as it pleased thee.

I went down to the bases of the mountains; as for the earth, her walls were about me for ever: but you have taken up my life from the underworld, O Lord my God.

As my life was fading away,
I remembered Yahweh.
My prayer came to You,
to Your holy temple.

“But [as for me], I will sacrifice to You
With the voice of thanksgiving;
I shall pay that which I have vowed.
Salvation is from the Lord!”

So Jonah got up and went to Nineveh as the Lord had said. Now Nineveh was a very great town, three days' journey from end to end.

Now Nineveh was a very large city, requiring a three-day journey to cross through it. As Jonah started into the city on the first day's journey, he proclaimed the message, "40 days more and Nineveh will be overthrown!"

And the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed fasting, and arrayed themselves in sackcloth, as well the great as the small of them.

And God saw what they did, how they were turned from their evil way; and God's purpose was changed as to the evil which he said he would do to them, and he did it not.

And the LORD prepared as it were a wild vine which sprang up over Jonah, that he might have shadow over his head, to deliver him out of his pain. And Jonah was exceeding glad of the wild vine.

But God prepared a worm as the morning dawned the next day. And it struck the plant, and it withered.

As the sun was rising, God appointed a scorching east wind. The sun beat down so much on Jonah’s head that he almost fainted, and he wanted to die. He said, “It’s better for me to die than to live.”

God said to Jonah, "Are you really so very angry about the little plant?" And he said, "I am as angry as I could possibly be!"

Then said Yahweh, Thou, wouldest have spared the gourd, for which thou hadst not toiled, neither hadst thou made it grow, - which, as the off-spring of a night, came up, and, as the offspring of a night, perished;

Should I not care about the great city of Nineveh, which has more than 120,000 people who cannot distinguish between their right and their left, as well as many animals?”