The sailors were so afraid that each cried out to his own god and they flung the ship's cargo overboard to make the ship lighter. Jonah, meanwhile, had gone down into the hold below deck, had lain down, and was sound asleep.

The sailors said to one another, "Come on, let's cast lots to find out whose fault it is that this disaster has overtaken us." So they cast lots, and Jonah was singled out.

They said to him, "Tell us, whose fault is it that this disaster has overtaken us? What's your occupation? Where do you come from? What's your country? And who are your people?"

Hearing this, the men became even more afraid and said to him, "What have you done?" (The men said this because they knew that he was trying to escape from the Lord, because he had previously told them.)

Because the storm was growing worse and worse, they said to him, "What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?"

Instead, they tried to row back to land, but they were not able to do so because the storm kept growing worse and worse.

So they cried out to the Lord, "Oh, please, Lord, don't let us die on account of this man! Don't hold us guilty of shedding innocent blood. After all, you, Lord, have done just as you pleased."

So they picked Jonah up and threw him into the sea, and the sea stopped raging.

The people of Nineveh believed in God, and they declared a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them.

He issued a proclamation and said, "In Nineveh, by the decree of the king and his nobles: No human or animal, cattle or sheep, is to taste anything; they must not eat and they must not drink water.

Every person and animal must put on sackcloth and must cry earnestly to God, and everyone must turn from their evil way of living and from the violence that they do.

When God saw their actions -- they turned from their evil way of living! -- God relented concerning the judgment he had threatened them with and he did not destroy them.