All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep.

The captain went to him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us so that we will not perish.”

So they asked him, “Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What kind of work do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?”

The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?”

You hurled me into the depths, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me.

The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.

Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.”

Jonah’s Anger at the Lord’s Compassion

But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry.

He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.