Jonah

Chapter 4

1 BUT it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was greatly grieved.

2 And he prayed to the LORD and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I fled before to Tarshish; for I knew that thou art a gracious and merciful God, patient and of great kindness, and thou art ready to turn away calamity.

3 Therefore now, O my LORD, take my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.

4 Then the LORD said to him, Are you very sorrowful?

5 So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made a booth for himself, and sat under it in the shade to see what would happen to the city.

6 And the LORD God commanded a tender shoot of gourd to spring up, and it sprang up and came over Jonah, and became a shade over his head, and comforted him of his grief. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the gourd.

7 But the next day at dawn, God commanded a worm, and it smote the gourd so that it withered.

8 And it came to pass when the sun arose, the LORD God commanded a sultry east wind; and it withered the gourd, and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he was weary and wished that he might die, and said, O LORD, you can take my life from me, for I am not better than my fathers.

9 And the LORD God said to Jonah, Are you exceedingly grieved over the gourd? And Jonah said, I am exceedingly grieved, even unto death.

10 Then the LORD said to him, You have had pity on the gourd for the which you did not labor nor did you make it to grow; which sprung up in a night and withered in a night;

11 And should not I have pity upon Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand,: and also much cattle?