The Book of Jonah

Chapter 1
1 The word of Yahweh came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying:
2 Rise! Go to Nineveh, the great city, and call out against it, for their evil ascends before Me.
3 Yet Jonah rose to run away to Tarshish from before Yahweh, and went down to Joppa. And he found a ship going to Tarshish. He paid its fare, and descended into it to go with them to Tarshish, away from before Yahweh.
4 As for Yahweh, He cast forth a great wind to the sea, and a great tempest came on the sea so that the ship was reckoned about to be broken.
5 And the mariners were fearful and cried out, each man to his elohim. And they cast forth the gear, which was in the ship, into the sea, to make it lightened for them. Yet Jonah had descended into the recesses of the lower deck, and he was lying down, and had fallen into a stupor.
6 Yet the navigator came near to him, and said to him, What is it to you, stupefied one! Rise! Call to your Elohim! Perhaps the Elohim shall reconsider as to us, and we shall not perish.
7 And they were saying, each man to his associate, Come, and let us cast lots that we may know on whose account this evil is with us. So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah.
8 Then they said to him, Do tell us, pray, on whose account this evil is with us? What is your work, and from where are you coming? What is your country, and where, from which people are you?
9 And he said to them, A Hebrew am I, and I fear Yahweh the Elohim of the heavens, Who made the sea and the dry ground.
10 Then the men feared with great fear, and they said to him, What is this you have done? For the men knew that from before Yahweh was he running away, for he had told them.
11 And they said to him, What shall we do to you that the sea may be calm for us? For the sea was becoming even more tempestuous.
12 And he said to them, Lift me up and cast me forth into the sea, and the sea shall be calm for you, for I am knowing that it is on my account that this great tempest is coming on you.
13 Yet the men tugged hard to turn back to the dry ground, yet they could not, for the sea became more tempestuous against them.
14 Then they called to Yahweh and said, Oh Yahweh, we pray, do not let us perish for the soul of this man. And may You not lay on us innocent blood, for You, O Yahweh, just as You are inclined, You do.
15 Then they lifted Jonah and cast him forth into the sea, and the sea stood still from its turbulence.
16 Hence the men feared Yahweh with great fear, and they offered a sacrifice to Yahweh and were vowing vows.
17 Yet Yahweh assigned a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah came to be in the bowels of the fish three days and three nights.

Chapter 2
1 Then Jonah prayed to Yahweh, his Elohim, from the bowels of the fish.
2 And he said, I call, because of my distress, to Yahweh, And He is answering me. Out of the belly of the unseen I implore; You hear my voice.
3 You are flinging me into the shadowy depth, Into the heart of the seas, And the stream, it is surrounding me; All Your breakers and Your billows, they pass over me.
4 And I say, I am driven out from in front of Your eyes. But I shall continue to look to Your holy temple.
5 The waters envelope me unto the soul; The abyss, it is surrounding me; Sedge is bound up about my head.
6 I go down to the fashioning points of the mountains; The earth, its bars are about me for the eon, Yet You shall bring up my life from ruin, O Yahweh, my Elohim.
7 As my soul droops within me, I remember Yahweh, And my prayer is coming to You, to Your holy temple.
8 Those keeping to the vanities of futility, they are forsaking their loyalty.
9 Yet let me, with the voice of acclamation, sacrifice to You; Let me pay that which I vowed. Salvation belongs to Yahweh!
10 Then Yahweh spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah upon the dry ground.

Chapter 3
1 The word of Yahweh came to Jonah a second time saying,
2 Rise! Go to Nineveh, the great city, and call out to it the message which I am speaking to you.
3 So Jonah rose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of Yahweh. Now Nineveh had become a great city to Elohim, of three days journey.
4 And Jonah started to go into the city, a journey of one day. And he called out and said, Forty days more and Nineveh shall be overturned.
5 Then the men of Nineveh believed in Elohim. And they proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth, from their greatest unto their smallest.
6 Also the word touched the king of Nineveh. He rose from his throne and removed his fur robe from him, and he covered himself with sackcloth and sat on ashes.
7 He called for an outcry to be proclaimed in Nineveh: By the decree of the king and his great ones, saying, Human and beast, herd and flock, Let them not be tasting anything. Let them not be grazing, And let them not be drinking water.
8 Let the human and the beast cover themselves with sackcloth. And let them call with steadfastness to Elohim. Let them turn back, each man, from his evil way And from the wrong which is in their palms.
9 Who is knowing, the Elohim may reverse and regret; He may turn back from His hot anger, And we shall not perish?
10 And the One, Elohim, saw their acts, that they turned back from their evil way. And the One, Elohim, regretted of the evil which He had spoken to do to them, and He did it not.

Chapter 4
1 Yet it was displeasing to Jonah, a great evil, and it was hot with him.
2 He prayed to Yahweh and said, Oh Yahweh, was not this my word while still I came to be on my own ground? Therefore I forestalled by running away toward Tarshish, for I know that You are a gracious El, and compassionate, slow to anger and of much benignity, and regretting of the evil.
3 And now, O Yahweh, take, I pray, my soul from me, for better is my death than my life.
4 Then Yahweh said, Is it good for you to be hot?
5 And Jonah went forth from the city and sat east of the city. He made for himself there a booth and sat under it in the shade until he saw what should come to be in the city.
6 Then Yahweh Elohim assigned a gourd, and it came up over Jonah, to be a shade over his head, to rescue him from his evil. And Jonah rejoiced over the gourd with great rejoicing.
7 Yet the One, Elohim, assigned a worm at the ascending of the dawn of the morrow, and it smote the gourd so that it dried up.
8 And it came as the sun rose, that Elohim assigned a sultry east wind, and the sun smote on the head of Jonah, and he swooned. And he asked for his soul to die and said, Better is my death than my life.
9 Then Elohim said to Jonah, Is it good for you to be hot over the gourd? Yet he said, It is good for me to be hot unto death.
10 And Yahweh said, You commiserate over the gourd, for which you toiled not, neither did you make it grow up. It came to be one night old, and it perished one night old.
11 And I, should I not commiserate over Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than 120,000 human beings who do not know their right from their left, and many beasts?