Jonah 4
Living Bible
4 This change of plans made Jonah very angry. 2 He complained to the Lord about it: “This is exactly what I thought you’d do, Lord, when I was there in my own country and you first told me to come here. That’s why I ran away to Tarshish. For I knew you were a gracious God, merciful, slow to get angry, and full of kindness; I knew how easily you could cancel your plans for destroying these people.
3 “Please kill me, Lord; I’d rather be dead than alive when nothing that I told them happens.[a]”
4 Then the Lord said, “Is it right to be angry about this?”
5 So Jonah went out and sat sulking[b] on the east side of the city, and he made a leafy shelter to shade him as he waited there to see if anything would happen to the city. 6 And when the leaves of the shelter withered in the heat, the Lord arranged for a vine to grow up quickly and spread its broad leaves over Jonah’s head to shade him. This made him comfortable and very grateful.
7 But God also prepared a worm! The next morning the worm ate through the stem of the plant, so that it withered away and died.
8 Then when the sun was hot, God ordered a scorching east wind to blow on Jonah, and the sun beat down upon his head until he grew faint and wished to die. For he said, “Death is better than this!”
9 And God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry because the plant died?”
“Yes,” Jonah said, “it is; it is right for me to be angry enough to die!”
10 Then the Lord said, “You feel sorry for yourself when your shelter is destroyed, though you did no work to put it there, and it is, at best, short-lived. 11 And why shouldn’t I feel sorry for a great city like Nineveh with its 120,000 people in utter spiritual darkness[c] and all its cattle?”
Footnotes
- Jonah 4:3 when nothing that I told them happens, implied.
- Jonah 4:5 sat sulking, implied.
- Jonah 4:11 with its 120,000 people in utter spiritual darkness, or “with its 120,000 children who don’t know their right hands from their left.”
Jonah 4
Modern English Version
Jonah’s Anger and the Lord’s Compassion
4 Now this greatly displeased Jonah, and he became angry. 2 He prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord! Is this not what I said while I was still in my own land? This is the reason that I fled before to Tarshish, because I knew that You are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, abundant in faithfulness, and ready to relent from punishment. 3 Therefore, Lord, take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
4 Then the Lord said, “Is it right for you to be angry?”
5 So Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city and made for himself a booth there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would happen to the city. 6 Then the Lord God appointed a plant, and it grew up over Jonah to provide shade over his head, to provide comfort from his grief. And Jonah was very happy about the plant. 7 But at dawn the next day, God appointed a worm to attack the plant so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah so that he became faint and asked that he might die. He said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”
9 Then God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”
And Jonah replied, “It is right for me to be angry, even to death.”
10 The Lord said, “You are troubled about the plant for which you did not labor and did not grow. It came up in a night and perished in a night. 11 Should I not, therefore, be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people, who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?”
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The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.