Jonah 1:17-3:10

Living Bible

¹⁷ Now the Lord had arranged for a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights.

2 Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from inside the fish:

² “In my great trouble I cried to the Lord and he answered me; from the depths of death I called, and Lord, you heard me! ³ You threw me into the ocean depths; I sank down into the floods of waters and was covered by your wild and stormy waves. ⁴ Then I said, ‘O Lord, you have rejected me and cast me away. How shall I ever again see your holy Temple?’

⁵ “I sank beneath the waves, and death was very near. The waters closed above me; the seaweed wrapped itself around my head. ⁶ I went down to the bottoms of the mountains that rise from the ocean floor. I was locked out of life and imprisoned in the land of death. But, O Lord my God, you have snatched me from the yawning jaws of death!

⁷ “When I had lost all hope, I turned my thoughts once more to the Lord. And my earnest prayer went to you in your holy Temple. ⁸ (Those who worship false gods have turned their backs on all the mercies waiting for them from the Lord!)

⁹ “I will never worship anyone but you! For how can I thank you enough for all you have done? I will surely fulfill my promises. For my deliverance comes from the Lord alone.”

¹⁰ And the Lord ordered the fish to spit up Jonah on the beach, and it did.

3 ^1-2 Then the Lord spoke to Jonah again: “Go to that great city, Nineveh,” he said, “and warn them of their doom, as I told you to before!”

³ So Jonah obeyed and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city with many villages around it—so large that it would take three days to walk through it.^[a]

^4-5 But the very first day when Jonah entered the city and began to preach, the people repented. Jonah shouted to the crowds that gathered around him, “Forty days from now Nineveh will be destroyed!” And they believed him and declared a fast; from the king on down, everyone put on sackcloth—the rough, coarse garments worn at times of mourning.^[b]

⁶ For when the king of Nineveh heard what Jonah was saying, he stepped down from his throne, laid aside his royal robes, put on sackcloth, and sat in ashes. ⁷ And the king and his nobles sent this message throughout the city: “Let no one, not even the animals, eat anything at all, nor even drink any water. ⁸ Everyone must wear sackcloth and cry mightily to God, and let everyone turn from his evil ways, from his violence and robbing. ⁹ Who can tell? Perhaps even yet God will decide to let us live and will hold back his fierce anger from destroying us.”

¹⁰ And when God saw that they had put a stop to their evil ways, he abandoned his plan to destroy them and didn’t carry it through.