Jonah’s anger at God’s show of mercy
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📚But this displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry✭. 2 📚✭And he prayed to the LORD, and said, “Please, LORD, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore before this I fled to Tarshish. For I knew that you are a gracious God, and merciful, slow to get angry, and of great kindness, and one who relents concerning calamity. 3 📚Therefore now, O LORD, I beg you to take my life✭ from me, for it is better for me to die than to live”. 4 📚✭Then the LORD said, “Are you right to be angry?”
The plant and the worm
5 📚So Jonah went out of the city, and sat at the east side of the city, and there he made a booth for himself, and sat under it in the shade, until he could see what would become of the city✭. 6 📚And the LORD God prepared✭ a plant and made it come up over Jonah, so that it might give shade over his head, to deliver him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad about the plant✭. 7 📚✭But the next day when morning dawned, God prepared a worm, and it attacked the plant, so that it withered. 8 📚✭And it came about when the sun rose that God prepared a hot east wind. And the sun beat down on Jonah’s head, so that he fainted, and wished that he might die, and said, “It is better for me to die than to live”.
God rebukes Jonah
9 📚And God said to Jonah, “Are you right to be angry about the plant?” And he said, “I am right✭ to be angry, even to death”.
10 ✭Then the LORD said, “You are sorry about the plant, for which you did not labour or make to grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night. 11 📚And should I not spare Nineveh, that great city, where there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also many cattle?”