“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.

Then the sailors were afraid, and each man cried out to his god; and to lighten the ship [and diminish the danger] they threw the ship’s cargo into the sea. But Jonah had gone below into the hold of the ship and had lain down and was sound asleep.

So the captain came up to him and said, “How can you stay asleep? Get up! Call on your god! Perhaps your god will give a thought to us so that we will not perish.”

Then they said to him, “Now tell us! Who is to blame for this disaster? What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country?”

Then the men became extremely frightened and said to him, “How could you do this?” For the men knew that he was running from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.

Then they said to him, “What should we do to you, so that the sea will become calm for us?”—for the sea was becoming more and more violent.

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.”

Then they called on the Lord and said, “Please, O Lord, do not let us perish because of taking this man’s life, and do not make us accountable for innocent blood; for You, O Lord, have done as You pleased.”

and said,

“I called out of my trouble and distress to the Lord,
And He answered me;
Out of the belly of Sheol I cried for help,
And You heard my voice.

“Then I said, ‘I have been cast out of Your sight.
Nevertheless I will look again toward Your holy temple.’

“I descended to the [very] roots of the mountains.
The earth with its bars closed behind me [bolting me in] forever,
Yet You have brought up my life from the pit (death), O Lord my God.

So the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land.

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

Then on the first day’s walk, Jonah began to go through the city, and he called out and said, “Forty days more [remain] and [then] Nineveh will be overthrown!”

When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God [had compassion and] relented concerning the disaster which He had declared that He would bring upon them. And He did not do it.

But it greatly displeased Jonah and he became angry.

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].

Therefore now, O Lord, just take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

Then Jonah went out of the city and sat east of it. There he made himself a shelter and sat under its shade so that he could see what would happen in the city.

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.

When the sun came up God prepared a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah’s head so that he fainted and he wished to die, and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”

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?”