Old Testament · Jonah

Jonah 4

Jonah’s Anger at the LORD’s Compassion

1And it was evil to Jonah, a great evil, and it burned to him. 2And he prayed to the LORD, and said: "Ah, O LORD, was not this my word while I was yet upon my ground^a? Therefore I went beforehand to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in mercy, and relenting concerning the evil. 3And now, O LORD, take, please, my soul^b from me; for better is my death than my life^c."

4And the LORD said: "Is it well that it burns to you?"

5And Jonah went out of the city, and sat to the east of the city, and made himself there a booth, and sat under it in the shade, until he might see what would be in the city. 6And the LORD God appointed a qiqayon plant, and it came up over Jonah, to be a shade over his head, to deliver him from his evil; and Jonah rejoiced over the qiqayon a great rejoicing.

7And God appointed a worm at the rising of the dawn the next day, and it smote the qiqayon, and it withered.

8And it came to pass, as the sun rose, that God appointed a scorching east wind^d, and the sun smote upon the head of Jonah, and he fainted; and he asked for his soul to die, and said: "Better is my death than my life."

9And God said to Jonah: "Is it well that it burns to you over the qiqayon?" And he said: "It is rightly burning to me, unto death."

10And the LORD said: "You had pity upon the qiqayon, for which you did not labor, and which you did not make grow; which was a son of a night, and as a son of a night perished. 11And I, shall I not have pity upon Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons^e who do not know between their right hand and their left, and many beasts?"