View source for Jonah (ch. 4)

Chapter 4 of the '''''Book of Jonah''''' reveals [[Jonah]]'s true intentions as to running away: he wanted to see [[Nineveh]] destoyed, as he had hated that city greatly, and the [[Lord]]'s staying of His judgement only made him angry.  God explained to him through a gourd that He cares very much about the inhabitants of any city enough to send someone like Jonah to preach repentance.

==Text of ''Jonah'', chapter 4==
''The text is from the Authorized (King James) Version of the Bible''

4:1  But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. 

4:2  And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. 

4:3  Therefore now, O LORD, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live. 

4:4  Then said the LORD, Doest thou well to be angry? 

4:5  So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city. 

4:6  And the LORD God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd. 

4:7  But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. 

4:8  And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live. 

4:9  And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death. 

4:10  Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: 

4:11  And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?

[[Category:Old Testament]]