Jonah

Chapter 1

¹ Yahweh told the prophet Jonah, son of Amittai, ² “Go now to the Assyrian capital city, Nineveh, and accuse them of being so evil that I have noticed in heaven.” ³ Instead, Jonah got up and hurried off towards Tarshish (which was in the opposite direction), trying to escape Yahweh. He went down to the port of Joppa and booked passage on a ship going to Tarshish. When they were ready to depart he tried to hide from Yahweh by going below decks. ⁴ But Yahweh sent such an enormous wind storm over them that the waves were almost tearing the ship apart. ⁵ The sailors were very frightened. Because of that, they each started to pray to their own gods to save them. Then they threw the cargo into the sea to make the ship lighter so that it would not sink easily. However, Jonah was lying down asleep below decks!

⁶ Then the captain went down to where Jonah was sleeping soundly. He awoke him and said to him, “How can you sleep during a storm like this? Get up and pray to your god! Perhaps he will pity us and save us, so that we will not drown!”

⁷ Then the sailors said to each other, “We need to cast lots, to determine who has caused all this trouble!” So they did that, and the lot indicated Jonah.

⁸ So they asked him, “Can you tell us who caused this storm to come on us? What work do you do? Where are you coming from? What country and what people do you belong to?” ⁹ Jonah replied, “I am a Hebrew. I worship Yahweh God, who lives in heaven. He is the one who made the sea and the land, ¹⁰ and I am running away from him.” After the sailors heard that, they were terrified. They said to him, “Now Yahweh is angry with us too!” ¹¹ The storm kept getting worse and the waves kept getting bigger. So one of the sailors asked Jonah, “What should we do with you in order to make the sea become calm for us?” ¹² He replied, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea. If you do that, it will become calm for you. I know that this terrible storm happened because I did not do what Yahweh told me to do.”

¹³ But the sailors did not want to do that. Instead, they tried hard to row the ship back to the land. But they could not do that, because the storm continued to get worse.

¹⁴ Therefore they prayed to Yahweh, “Yahweh, because you control everything, including this storm and the casting of lots, we beg you not kill us for killing this man if he is innocent.” ¹⁵ Then they picked Jonah up and threw him into the sea. Then the sea became calm. ¹⁶ When that happened, the sailors became greatly awed at Yahweh’s power. So they offered a sacrifice to Yahweh, and they strongly promised him that they would do things that would please him.

¹⁷ While they were doing that, Yahweh sent a huge fish that swallowed Jonah. Then Jonah was inside the fish for three days and three nights. ^[1]

Chapter 2

¹ While he was inside the huge fish, Jonah prayed to Yahweh, the God whom he worshiped. ² He said, “When I was deeply distressed, I called to Yahweh for help and he rescued me. As I sunk deep down into the place where dead people go, I begged for help and you listened to my prayer. ³ You threw me down into the deep water, into the bottom of the sea. The currents you made in the sea were swirling around me, and your huge waves were crashing above me ⁴ so much that I thought, ‘You are sending me away, out of your sight.’ But I will keep looking towards the holy place where you live. ⁵ I was neck deep in water, swirling ever deeper with seaweed wrapped around my head. ⁶ I sank down to where the mountains start rising from the bottom of the sea, inescapably imprisoned deep in the earth. But you, Yahweh, God whom I worship, pulled me alive out of the place of the dead. ⁷ When I was almost dead, Yahweh, I thought about you. You heard my prayer in the holy place where you live.

         ⁸ All those who worship worthless idols are rejecting you, the one who could act faithfully toward them.

         ⁹ But I will sing to thank you, and I will offer a sacrifice to you. I will surely do what I have solemnly promised to do. Yahweh, you are the one who is able to save us.”

¹⁰ Then Yahweh commanded the huge fish to vomit out Jonah, and the fish vomited out Jonah onto the dry land.

Chapter 3

¹ Then Yahweh told Jonah again, ² “Go now to that huge city, Nineveh, and tell them the message that I am giving you.”

³ So this time Jonah obeyed Yahweh, and he went to Nineveh. That city was very big. A person had to walk for three days to completely go through it. ⁴ When Jonah arrived, he began walking through the city for one day. Then he started to proclaim to the people, “Forty days from now, Nineveh will be destroyed!”

⁵ The people of Nineveh believed God’s message. They all decided that everyone should stop eating and put on coarse cloth, to show that they were sorry for having sinned. So everyone, including all the important people and all the unimportant people, did that.

⁶ The king of Nineveh heard about Jonah’s message. So he left his throne, took off his royal robes, put on coarse cloth, and sat down where there were cold ashes, to show that he also was sorry for having sinned. ⁷ Then he sent messengers to proclaim to the people in Nineveh: “My advisors and I have decreed that no one may eat or drink anything. Do not even allow your animals to eat or drink. ⁸ Instead, every person must put on coarse cloth. Put coarse cloth on your animals, too. Then everyone must pray fervently to God. And everyone must stop doing evil actions, and stop acting violently toward others. ⁹ Perhaps, if everyone does that, God may change his mind and be merciful to us, and stop being very angry with us. If that happens, we will not die.”

¹⁰ When they all did that, God saw what they were doing, and he saw that they had stopped doing evil actions. So he pitied them, and he did not get rid of them as he had threatened to do.

Chapter 4

¹ But Jonah felt that it was very bad that God had not destroyed Nineveh. He became very angry. ² He prayed to Yahweh, “Oh, Yahweh, what you have done is just what I thought that you would do even before I left home. The reason I ran away to go to Tarshish was to stop this very thing from happening, because I knew that you act very kindly and compassionately toward all people. You do not quickly become angry with people who do evil. You love people very much, and you change your mind about punishing people who sin. ³ So now, Oh Yahweh, please kill me, because I would rather die than live if you will not destroy Ninevah.”

⁴ Yahweh replied, “Is it right for you to be angry that I did not destroy the city?”

⁵ Instead of replying, Jonah went out of the city. He sat down to the east of the city. Getting hot, he made a small shelter to protect himself from the sun. He sat under the shelter and waited to see what would happen to the city. ⁶ Then Yahweh God caused a vine to grow up immediately to shade Jonah’s head from the sun and to save him from his discomfort. Jonah was very happy about having the vine over his head. ⁷ But before dawn the next day, God sent a worm that chewed the vine, with the result that the vine withered. ⁸ Then, when the sun rose high in the sky, God sent a very hot wind from the east, and the sun shone very strongly on Jonah’s head, with the result that he felt faint. He wanted to die, and he said, “It would be better for me to die than to continue to live!”

⁹ But God asked Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about what happened to the vine?” Jonah replied, “Yes, it is right! Now I am angry enough to die!”

¹⁰ But Yahweh said to him, “You were concerned about that vine when I caused it to wither, even though you did not take care of it, and you did not make it grow. It just grew up during one night and it completely withered at the end of the next night. ¹¹ But there are more than 120,000 people in that huge city, Ninevah, who cannot tell right from wrong. There are also many cattle. Much more than your petty concerns, it is right for me to be concerned about them and act mercifully to them.”