“Go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim [judgment] against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me.”

But the Lord hurled a great wind toward the sea, and there was a violent tempest on the sea so that the ship was about to break up.

Jonah said to them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea. Then the sea will become calm for you, for I know that it is because of me that this great storm has come upon you.”

Now the Lord had prepared (appointed, destined) a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights.

“Go to Nineveh the great city and declare to it the message which I am going to tell you.”

So Jonah went to Nineveh in accordance with the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three days’ walk [about sixty miles in circumference].

He prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still in my country? That is why I ran to Tarshish, because I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and great in lovingkindness, and [when sinners turn to You] You revoke the [sentence of] disaster [against them].

So the Lord God prepared a plant and it grew up over Jonah, to be a shade over his head to spare him from discomfort. And Jonah was extremely happy about [the protection of] the plant.

But God prepared a worm when morning dawned the next day, and it attacked the plant and it withered.

Then God said to Jonah, “Do you have a good reason to be angry about [the loss of] the plant?” And he said, “I have a [very] good reason to be angry, angry enough to die!”

Then the Lord said, “You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight.

Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 [innocent] persons, who do not know the difference between their right and left hand [and are not yet accountable for sin], as well as many [blameless] animals?”