Jonah 4
1 Jonah, however, was greatly displeased, and he became angry.
But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.
2 So he prayed to the LORD, saying, “O LORD, is this not what I said while I was still in my own country? This is why I was so quick to flee toward Tarshish. I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion—One who relents from sending disaster.
And he prayed to the LORD, and said, I pray you, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before to Tarshish: for I knew that you are a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repent you of the evil.
3 And now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
Therefore now, O LORD, take, I beseech you, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.
4 But the LORD replied, “Have you any right to be angry?”
Then said the LORD, Do you well to be angry?
5 Then Jonah left the city and sat down east of it, where he made himself a shelter and sat in its shade to see what would happen to the city.
So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city.
6 So the LORD God appointed a vine, and it grew up to provide shade over Jonah’s head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was greatly pleased with the plant.
And the LORD God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd.
7 When dawn came the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant so that it withered.
But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered.
8 As the sun was rising, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint and wished to die, saying, “It is better for me to die than to live.”
And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat on the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live.
9 Then God asked Jonah, “Have you any right to be angry about the plant?” “I do,” he replied. “I am angry enough to die!”
And God said to Jonah, Do you well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even to death.
10 But the LORD said, “You cared about the plant, which you neither tended nor made grow. It sprang up in a night and perished in a night.
Then said the LORD, You have had pity on the gourd, for the which you have not labored, neither made it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:
11 So should I not care about the great city of Nineveh, which has more than 120,000 people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well?”
And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?
