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.

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?"

The Lord sent a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights.

Water engulfed me up to my neck; the deep ocean surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head.

When my life was ebbing away, I called out to the Lord, and my prayer came to your holy temple.

So Jonah went immediately to Nineveh, as the Lord had said. (Now Nineveh was an enormous city -- it required three days to walk through it!)

He prayed to the Lord and said, "Oh, Lord, this is just what I thought would happen when I was in my own country. This is what I tried to prevent by attempting to escape to Tarshish! -- because I knew that you are gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in mercy, and one who relents concerning threatened judgment.

The Lord God appointed a little plant and caused it to grow up over Jonah to be a shade over his head to rescue him from his misery. Now Jonah was very delighted about the little plant.