The In-Dept Study of the Bible
Jonah 4
1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly,
and he was angry.
2 He prayed to Yahweh, and said, “Please,
Yahweh, wasn’t this what I said when I
was still in my own country? Therefore I
hurried to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that
you are a gracious God and merciful, slow
to anger, and abundant in loving kindness,
and you relent of doing harm.
3 Therefore now, Yahweh, take, I beg
you, my life from me, for it is better for me
to die than to live.”
4 Yahweh said, “Is it right for you to be
angry?”
5 Then Jonah went out of the city and
sat on the east side of the city, and there
made himself a booth and sat under it in
the shade, until he might see what would
become of the city.
6 Yahweh God prepared a vine and made
it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a
shade overhisheadtodeliverhimfromhis
discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad
because of the vine.
7 But God prepared a worm at dawn the
next day, and it chewed on the vine so that
it withered.
8 When the sun arose, God prepared
a sultry east wind; and the sun beat on
Jonah’s head, so that he was faint and
requested for himself that he might die. He
said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”
9 God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to
be angry about the vine?” He said,
“I am right to be angry, even to death.”
10 Yahweh said, “You have been concerned for
the vine, for which you have not labored,
neither made it grow; which came up in a night
and perished in a night.
11 Shouldn’t I be concerned for Nineveh,
that great city, in which are more than one
hundred twenty thousand persons who
can’t discern between their right hand and
their left hand, and also many animals?”