So Jonah arose, and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city, of three days' journey. And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown."
And the people of Nineveh believed God; and they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. And the tidings reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth and sat in ashes. And he made proclamation and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles.
A PROCLAMATION.
Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything: let them not feed nor drink water: but let them be covered with sackcloth, both man and beast, and let them cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn everyone from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who knoweth whether God will not turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?.
And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, which he said he would do unto them; and he did it not.
But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry.
And he prayed to the Lord, and said, "I pray thee, O Lord, [{171}] was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I hasted to flee to Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and full of compassion, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy, and repentest thee of the evil. Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live."
And the Lord said, "Doest thou well to be angry?" Then Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a shelter, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city. And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head. So Jonah was exceeding glad because of the gourd. But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it ate the gourd, that it withered. And it came to pass, when the sun arose, that God prepared a sultry east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and requested for himself that he might die, and said, "It is better for me to die than to live."
And God said to Jonah, "Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd?"
And he said, "I do well to be angry even unto death."