Jonah 4

Legacy Standard Bible

Jonah’s Anger

4 But this was a great evil to Jonah, and he became ^(A)angry. ² And he ^(B)prayed to Yahweh and said, “Ah! O Yahweh, was not this my word to myself while I was still in my own land? Therefore I went ahead to ^(C)flee to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a ^(D)gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning evil. ³ So now, O Yahweh, please ^(E)take my ^[a]life from me, for death is ^(F)better to me than life.” ⁴ And Yahweh said, “Do you have good reason to be angry?”

⁵ Then Jonah went out from the city and sat east of the city. And there he made a booth for himself and ^(G)sat under it in the shade until he could see what would happen in the city. ⁶ So Yahweh God appointed a ^[b]plant, and it came up over Jonah to be a shade over his head to deliver him from his miserable evil. And Jonah was ^[c]extremely glad about the plant. ⁷ But God appointed a worm at the ^[d]breaking of dawn the next day, and it struck the plant, and ^[e]it ^(H)dried up. ⁸ Then it happened that as the sun rose up, God appointed a scorching ^(I)east wind, and the ^(J)sun struck down on Jonah’s head so that he became faint and asked with all his soul to die and said, “^(K)Death is better to me than life.”

⁹ Then God said to Jonah, “Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant?” And he said, “I have good reason to be angry, even to death.” ¹⁰ Then Yahweh said, “You had pity on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which ^[f]came to be overnight and perished ^[g]overnight. ¹¹ So should I not ^(L)have pity on Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not ^(M)know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many ^[h](N)animals?”