"Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim against it, for their wickedness has come up before me."

But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid its fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD.

They all said to each other, "Come, let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is on us." So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah.

Then they asked him, "Tell us, please, for whose cause this evil is on us. What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? Of what people are you?"

He said to them, "I am a Hebrew, and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, who has made the sea and the dry land."

Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said to him, "What is this that you have done?" For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them.

Then said they to him, "What shall we do to you, that the sea may be calm to us?" For the sea grew more and more stormy.

He said to them, "Take me up, and throw me into the sea. Then the sea will be calm for you; for I know that because of me this great storm is on you."

Nevertheless the men rowed hard to get them back to the land; but they could not, for the sea grew more and more stormy against them.

Therefore they cried to the LORD, and said, "We beg you, LORD, we beg you, let us not perish for this man's life, and do not lay on us innocent blood; for you, LORD, have done as it pleased you."

For you threw me into the depths, in the heart of the seas. The flood was all around me. All your waves and your billows passed over me.

He prayed to the LORD, and said, "Please, LORD, wasn't this what I said when I was still in my own country? Therefore I hurried to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, and you relent of doing harm.

Therefore now, LORD, take, I beg you, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live."

The LORD said, "Is it right for you to be angry?"

It happened, when the sun arose, that God prepared a sultry east wind; and the sun beat on Jonah's head, so that he fainted, and requested for himself that he might die, and said, "It is better for me to die than to live."

God said to Jonah, "Is it right for you to be angry about the vine?" He said, "I am right to be angry, even to death."

The LORD said, "You have been concerned for the vine, for which you have not labored, neither made it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night.

Shouldn't I be concerned for Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred twenty thousand persons who can't discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much livestock?"