The Scriptures (ISR 1998) 1But it greatly displeased Yonah, and he was grieved. 2And he prayed to יהוה, and he said, “Please, יהוה, was this not what I said while I was in my own land? This is why I went ahead and fled to Tarshish. For I know that You are an Ěl showing favour, and compassionate, patient and of great kindness, and relenting from doing evil. 3“And now, O יהוה, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live!” 4And יהוה said, “Are you right to be displeased?” 5Then Yonah went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city, and made himself a shelter there, and sat under it in the shade, to see what would become of the city. 6And יהוה Elohim appointed a plant and made it come up over Yonah, to be a shade for his head to deliver him from his discomfort. And Yonah greatly rejoiced over the plant. 7But as morning dawned the next day Elohim appointed a worm which attacked the plant so that it withered. 8And it came to be when the sun came up, that Elohim appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun smote on Yonah’s head, so that he grew faint, and asked for his life to die, and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.” 9And Elohim said to Yonah, “Have you rightly become displeased over the plant?” And he said, “I have rightly become displeased, even to death!” 10And יהוה said, “You felt sorry for the plant for which you have not laboured, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night. 11“And should I not pardon Ninewĕh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand beings who have not known their right hand from their left, and much cattle?” |