The captain approached him and said, “What are you doing sound asleep? Get up! Call to your god. Maybe this god will consider us, and we won’t perish.”

“Come on!” the sailors said to each other. “Let’s cast lots. Then we’ll know who is to blame for this trouble we’re in.” So they cast lots, and the lot singled out Jonah.

Then they said to him, “Tell us who is to blame for this trouble we’re in. What is your business and where are you from? What is your country and what people are you from?”

Then the men were even more afraid and said to him, “What is this you’ve done?” The men knew he was fleeing from the Lord’s presence, because he had told them.

So they said to him, “What should we do to you to calm this sea that’s against us?” For the sea was getting worse and worse.

But I said: I have been banished
from Your sight,
yet I will look once more
toward Your holy temple.

Jonah set out on the first day of his walk in the city and proclaimed, “In 40 days Nineveh will be demolished!”

When word reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, took off his royal robe, put on sackcloth, and sat in ashes.

He prayed to the Lord: “Please, Lord, isn’t this what I said while I was still in my own country? That’s why I fled toward Tarshish in the first place. I knew that You are a merciful and compassionate God, slow to become angry, rich in faithful love, and One who relents from sending disaster.

Jonah left the city and sat down east of it. He made himself a shelter there and sat in its shade to see what would happen to the city.

As the sun was rising, God appointed a scorching east wind. The sun beat down so much on Jonah’s head that he almost fainted, and he wanted to die. He said, “It’s better for me to die than to live.”

So the Lord said, “You cared about the plant, which you did not labor over and did not grow. It appeared in a night and perished in a night.