< Jonah 4 >
1 And it is grievous to Jonah—a great evil—and he is displeased at it;
But Jonas was very deeply grieved, and he was confounded.
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?
And he prayed to the Lord, and said, O Lord, were not these my words when I was yet in my land? therefore I made haste to flee to Tharsis; because I knew that you are merciful and compassionate, longsuffering, and abundant in kindness, and repent of evil.
3 And now, O YHWH, please take my soul from me, for better [is] my death than my life.”
And now, Lord God, 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?”
And the Lord said to Jonas, Are you very much grieved?
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.
And Jonas went out from the city, and sat over against the city; and he made for himself there a booth, and he sat under it, until he should perceive what would become of 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.
And the Lord God commanded a gourd, and it came up over the head of Jonas, to be a shadow over his head, to shade him from his calamities: and Jonas rejoiced with great joy for the gourd.
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.
And God commanded a worm the next morning, and it struck the gourd, and it withered away.
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.”
And it came to pass at the rising of the sun, that God commanded a burning east wind; and the sun struck on the head of Jonas, and he fainted, and despaired of his life, and said, [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.”
And God said to Jonas, Are you very much grieved for the gourd? And he said, I am very much grieved, even to death.
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,
And the Lord said, You had pity on the gourd, for which you has not suffered, neither did you rear it; which came up before night, and perished before [another] 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?”
and shall not I spare Nineve, the great city, in which dwell more than twelve myriads of human beings, who do not know their right hand or their left hand; and [also] much cattle?