Study Desk

The Lord relented concerning this. “This will not happen either,” said the Lord God.

The Lord God showed me this: a basket of summer fruit.

Those who swear by the guilt of Samariaand say, “As your god lives, Dan,”or, “As the way of Beer-sheba lives”—they will fall, never to rise again.

The Lord, the God of Armies—he touches the earth;it melts, and all who dwell in it mourn;all of it rises like the Nileand subsides like the Nile of Egypt.

I will plant them on their land,and they will never again be uprootedfrom the land I have given them.The Lord your God has spoken.

The sailors were afraid, and each cried out to his god. They threw the ship’s cargo into the sea to lighten the load. Meanwhile, Jonah had gone down to the lowest part of the vessel and had stretched out and fallen into a deep sleep.

The captain approached him and said, “What are you doing sound asleep? Get up! Call to your god. Maybe this god will consider us, and we won’t perish.”

He answered them, “I’m a Hebrew. I worship the Lord, the God of the heavens, who made the sea and the dry land.”

Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish:

I sank to the foundations of the mountains,the earth’s gates shut behind me forever!Then you raised my life from the Pit, Lord my God!

Then the people of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast and dressed in sackcloth—from the greatest of them to the least.

Furthermore, both people and animals must be covered with sackcloth, and everyone must call out earnestly to God. Each must turn from his evil ways and from his wrongdoing.

Who knows? God may turn and relent; he may turn from his burning anger so that we will not perish.

God saw their actions—that they had turned from their evil ways—so God relented from the disaster he had threatened them with. And he did not do it.

He prayed to the Lord: “Please, Lord, isn’t this what I thought while I was still in my own country? That’s why I fled toward Tarshish in the first place. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, and one who relents from sending disaster.

Then the Lord God appointed a plant, and it grew over Jonah to provide shade for his head to rescue him from his trouble. Jonah was greatly pleased with the plant.

When dawn came the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, and it withered.

As the sun was rising, God appointed a scorching east wind. The sun beat down on Jonah’s head so much that he almost fainted, and he wanted to die. He said, “It’s better for me to die than to live.”

Then God asked Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”

Listen, all you peoples;pay attention, earth and everyone in it!The Lord God will be a witness against you,the Lord, from his holy temple.