"Get up and go to Nineveh, that great city! Then cry out in protest against it, because their evil has come to my attention."

Meanwhile, each crewman told another, "Come on! Let's cast lots to find out whose fault it is that we're in this trouble." So they cast lots, and the lot indicated Jonah!

In mounting terror, the men asked him, "What have you done?" The men were aware that he was fleeing from the LORD, because he had admitted this to them.

Jonah told them, "Pick me up and toss me into the sea. Then the sea will calm down for you, because I know that it's my fault that this mighty storm has come upon you."

Those who cling to vain idols leave behind the gracious love that could have been theirs.

"Get up and go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you."

Who knows but that God may relent, have compassion, and turn from his fierce anger, so that we are not exterminated?"

God took note of what they did that they turned from their evil ways. Because God relented concerning the trouble about which he had warned them, he did not carry it out.

So he prayed to the LORD, "LORD, isn't this what I said while I was still in my home country? That's why I fled previously to Tarshish, because I knew you're a compassionate God, slow to anger, overflowing with gracious love, and reluctant to send trouble.

But at dawn the next day, God provided a worm that attacked the vine plant so that it withered away.

But the LORD asked, "You cared about a vine plant that you neither worked on nor cultivated? A vine plant that grew up overnight and died overnight?

So why shouldn't I be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 human beings who do not know their right hand from their left, as well as a lot of livestock?