< Jonah 4 >

1 And it is grievous to Jonah—a great evil—and he is displeased at it;
Jonah, however, was greatly displeased, and he became angry.
2 and he prays to YHWH, and he says, “Ah, now, O YHWH, is this not my word while I was in my own land—therefore I was beforehand [going] to flee to Tarshish—that I have known that You [are] a God, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in kindness, and relenting of evil?
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.
3 And now, O YHWH, please take my soul from me, for better [is] my death than my life.”
And now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
4 And YHWH says, “Is doing good displeasing to you?”
But the LORD replied, “Have you any right to be angry?”
5 And Jonah goes forth from the city, and sits on the east of the city, and makes a shelter for himself there, and sits under it in the shade, until he sees what is in the city.
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.
6 And YHWH God appoints a gourd, and causes it to come up over Jonah, to be a shade over his head, to give deliverance to him from his affliction, and Jonah rejoices because of the gourd [with] great joy.
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.
7 And God appoints a worm at the going up of the dawn on the next day, and it strikes the gourd, and it dries up.
When dawn came the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant so that it withered.
8 And it comes to pass, about the rising of the sun, that God appoints a cutting east wind, and the sun strikes on the head of Jonah, and he wraps himself up, and asks for his soul to die, and says, “Better [is] my death than my life.”
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.”
9 And God says to Jonah: “Is doing good displeasing to you, because of the gourd?” And he says, “To do good is displeasing to me—to death.”
Then God asked Jonah, “Have you any right to be angry about the plant?” “I do,” he replied. “I am angry enough to die!”
10 And YHWH says, “You have had pity on the gourd, for which you did not labor, neither did you nourish it, which came up [as] a son of night, and perished [as] a son of night,
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.
11 and I—do I not have pity on Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than one hundred twenty thousand of mankind, who have not known between their right hand and their left—and much livestock?”
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?”

< Jonah 4 >