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?”