Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

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.

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?”

145 ^1-2 I will praise you, my God and King, and bless your name each day and forever.

³ Great is Jehovah! Greatly praise him! His greatness is beyond discovery! ⁴ Let each generation tell its children what glorious things he does. ⁵ I will meditate about your glory, splendor, majesty, and miracles. ⁶ Your awe-inspiring deeds shall be on every tongue; I will proclaim your greatness. ⁷ Everyone will tell about how good you are and sing about your righteousness.

⁸ Jehovah is kind and merciful, slow to get angry, full of love.

²¹ For to me, living means opportunities for Christ, and dying—well, that’s better yet! ²² But if living will give me more opportunities to win people to Christ, then I really don’t know which is better, to live or die! ²³ Sometimes I want to live, and at other times I don’t, for I long to go and be with Christ. How much happier for me than being here! ²⁴ But the fact is that I can be of more help to you by staying!

²⁵ Yes, I am still needed down here, and so I feel certain I will be staying on earth a little longer, to help you grow and become happy in your faith; ²⁶ my staying will make you glad and give you reason to glorify Christ Jesus for keeping me safe when I return to visit you again.

²⁷ But whatever happens to me, remember always to live as Christians should, so that whether I ever see you again or not, I will keep on hearing good reports that you are standing side by side with one strong purpose—to tell the Good News ²⁸ fearlessly, no matter what your enemies may do. They will see this as a sign of their downfall, but for you it will be a clear sign from God that he is with you, and that he has given you eternal life with him. ²⁹ For to you has been given the privilege not only of trusting him but also of suffering for him. ³⁰ We are in this fight together. You have seen me suffer for him in the past; and I am still in the midst of a great and terrible struggle now, as you know so well.

20 Here is another illustration of the Kingdom of Heaven. “The owner of an estate went out early one morning to hire workers for his harvest field. ² He agreed to pay them $20 a day$20 a day, literally, “a denarius,” the payment for a day’s labor; equivalent to $20 in modern times, or £7. and sent them out to work.

³ “A couple of hours later he was passing a hiring hall and saw some men standing around waiting for jobs, ⁴ so he sent them also into his fields, telling them he would pay them whatever was right at the end of the day. ⁵ At noon and again around three o’clock in the afternoon he did the same thing.

⁶ “At five o’clock that evening he was in town again and saw some more men standing around and asked them, ‘Why haven’t you been working today?’

⁷ “‘Because no one hired us,’ they replied.

“‘Then go on out and join the others in my fields,’ he told them.

⁸ “That evening he told the paymaster to call the men in and pay them, beginning with the last men first. ⁹ When the men hired at five o’clock were paid, each received $20. ¹⁰ So when the men hired earlier came to get theirs, they assumed they would receive much more. But they, too, were paid $20.

^11-12 “They protested, ‘Those fellows worked only one hour, and yet you’ve paid them just as much as those of us who worked all day in the scorching heat.’

¹³ “‘Friend,’ he answered one of them, ‘I did you no wrong! Didn’t you agree to work all day for $20? ¹⁴ Take it and go. It is my desire to pay all the same; ¹⁵ is it against the law to give away my money if I want to? Should you be angry because I am kind?’ ¹⁶ And so it is that the last shall be first, and the first, last.”