Jonah 1

₁The Lord talked to Jonah, who was the son of Amittai. The Lord said to Jonah: ₂‘You must get up and go to the big city of Nineveh. Tell the people they must stop doing bad things. I have seen the many sins that the people are doing there and I am going to punish them.’

₃But Jonah wanted to get far away from God. He went to the city of Joppa. There he got into a boat that was going to sail to the city of Tarshish. Jonah paid the money to get into the boat. He wanted to get far away from God.

₄Then God sent a very strong wind over the sea. The wind was so strong that it became a storm on the sea and the boat nearly broke into pieces. ₅The seamen who worked on the boat were afraid and everyone prayed to the god that he always prayed to and asked his god to help them.

They took everything that was on the boat and they threw it into the sea so that the boat was not so heavy. But Jonah was sleeping where the other people could not see him. ₆The captain of the boat saw that Jonah was sleeping and he asked Jonah: ‘Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray to your God. Ask Him to help us. If your God will think about us and help us, then we will not die.’

₇Then the men said: ‘We must find out why this trouble came to us. Why did the storm come? Let us draw_lots, then we will see who did something wrong.’

They drew_lots and it showed that it was Jonah who did something wrong and that was why the storm came to them. ₈The seamen asked Jonah: ‘Tell us, is it you who made all these problems for us? What are you doing? Where do you come from? Where is your home, and your land? Who are your people?’

₉Jonah told the men: ‘I am a Hebrew man. I worship the Lord, the God of heaven. He made the world, the sea and the land.’

₁₀Jonah also told them that he was running away from God. The seamen became afraid when they heard what Jonah said. They said to Jonah: ‘Do you know what you have done? You have done a very bad thing.’

₁₁The wind and the waves of the sea became bigger and bigger and the seamen asked Jonah: ‘What must we do to make the sea still and calm again?’

₁₂Jonah told them: ‘You must throw me into the sea, then the sea will become still and calm again. I know that it is my fault that this wind and big storm has come to us.’

₁₃But the seamen did not want to throw Jonah into the sea. They tried hard to get the boat back to the land, but the wind was too strong and the waves on the sea were too big. The storm got bigger and bigger and they could not get the boat to the land. ₁₄Then the seamen who worked on the boat prayed and said: ‘O Lord, please do not cause us to die because of this man. We are going to throw him into the sea. Please do not punish us if he is innocent. We know that You are God. We know that You can do what You want to do.’

₁₅Then they took Jonah and they threw him into the sea. The wind and the storm stopped. The sea became still and calm again. ₁₆When the seamen saw this, they started to fear the Lord. They sacrificed_offerings to the Lord and they promised to pray to Him and to serve Him.

₁₇God sent a big fish to swallow Jonah and Jonah was inside the fish for 3 days and 3 nights.