Easy English Bible - Jonah
Chapter 1 2 3 4
God Loves People From Every Country
About the Book of Jonah
This book records what happened to a man called Jonah. Jonah lived in Gath Hepher, a town in Israel. Israel is east of the Mediterranean Sea. It is the home of God’s special people, the Jews.
We also read about Jonah in one other part of the Old Testament. This is in 2 Kings 14:25. The king was Jeroboam the Second. He ruled in the 8th century BC. A country near Israel, called Syria, had taken some of Israel’s land by war. We read that Jonah spoke God’s words to the Jews. He said that the people in Israel would win back this land by war from Syria. And that is what had happened. So people knew Jonah as a prophet. But Jonah’s book is not about the words that Jonah spoke. It records something that happened in his life.
We do not know when the writer wrote the book. It may have been about 750 BC. Jonah may have written the book. Or another prophet may have written it. Usually these prophets of God spoke only to the Jews in Israel and Judah.
1 The LORD spoke to Jonah, Amittai’s son. 2 He said ‘Go to the large, important city called Nineveh. Tell the people in the city that they do wrong things. I have seen what the cruel people there are doing. Lots of really bad things happen there.’
3 But Jonah ran away from the LORD. He went towards Tarshish. He went down to Joppa. There he found a ship that was ready to sail to that port. After he had paid for the journey, he got into the ship. He sailed to Tarshish to run away from the LORD.
4 Then the LORD sent a strong wind on the sea. There was a powerful storm. The storm almost broke the ship into pieces. 5 All the sailors were afraid. Each of them shouted in a loud voice to his own god. They threw the things that the ship carried into the sea. They made the ship’s weight as light as they could. But Jonah had gone below deck. He lay down and he slept. He slept in a way that it would be difficult for anyone to wake him up.
6 The ship’s captain went to Jonah. He said, ‘You should not be sleeping! Get up and speak in a loud voice to your god! Maybe he will listen to us and we will not die.’ 7 Then the sailors said to each other, ‘We will throw dice to find out who has caused this trouble.’ They threw dice. And they found out that Jonah had caused the storm.
8 So they asked Jonah, ‘Who has caused all this trouble for us? What is your job? Where do you come from? What country do you live in? Where were you born?’
9 Jonah explained. He said, ‘I am a Jew. I worship the LORD, the God of heaven. He made the sea and the land.’ 10 This made the sailors really afraid. They asked Jonah, ‘What have you done?’ They knew that he was running from the LORD. He had already told them that.
11 The water in the sea was moving up and down. It was so high now that water sometimes came into the ship. So the sailors asked Jonah, ‘What should we do to you? The water is coming into the ship. How can we stop that?’ 12 Jonah replied, ‘Lift me up and throw me into the sea. The sea will not move up and down any longer. It will become flat again. I have done something wrong. So you are in a storm.’
13 But the men did not throw Jonah into the sea. They rowed and they tried to return to the land. But they could not do that. Still the water in the sea moved up and down. It was even higher than before.
14 Then the men spoke in a loud voice to the LORD. They said, ‘This man has done nothing wrong. But we will have to kill this man. But LORD, please do not let us die because of this. Do not say that we have done something wrong. LORD, you have sent this storm for your own reasons.’
15 Then the sailors took Jonah and they threw him over the side of the ship. The water in the sea did not continue to move up and down. It became flat. 16 When they saw this, the men were afraid of the LORD. They respected him and they offered a sacrifice to him. And they promised God that they would do certain things. This was a serious promise.
17 But the LORD had made a very large fish or sea animal. The fish caught Jonah in its mouth. God had chosen the fish to take the whole body of Jonah. Jonah went down immediately from the mouth into the fish’s stomach. Jonah was inside the fish’s stomach for three days and three nights.
1 From inside the fish, Jonah prayed to the LORD his God.
2 He said,
‘I was really afraid.
So I spoke to the LORD about my trouble.
And he answered me.
From the deep hole, I shouted for help.
And you listened when I cried.
3 You threw me into the deep water.
I fell into the middle of the sea.
The water moved all round me.
It carried me along.
The high water came down over me.
The white water covered my head.
4 I said,
“You have sent me away so that you can no longer see me.
But I will look again towards the place where I can worship you.”
5 The water all round me made me afraid.
The deep water caused me to think that my life was in danger.
Plants in the sea covered very near round my head.
6 I went far down in the water.
I went down to the ground.
I could not go any deeper.
I did not know how I would ever come up again.
But you brought me up from the deep hole.
You are my LORD, my God.
7 While I was dying, I remembered you, LORD.
I prayed. And you heard me in the place where I can worship you.
8 Some people want to keep things that have no value.
They worship them.
So they do not receive God’s love that could be for them.
9 But I will give sacrifices to you.
I will sing and I will thank you.
I will do what I have promised to do.
The LORD has saved me.’
10 And the LORD spoke to the fish. The fish caused Jonah to leave its stomach and to come back out of its mouth. Jonah landed on to the dry ground.
1 God spoke to Jonah for the second time. 2 He said, ‘Go to the large, important city called Nineveh. Tell all the people there the message that I will give to you.’ 3 Jonah obeyed the LORD and he went to Nineveh.
Nineveh was a very large city. A person would need three days to travel all through it.
4 Jonah started to travel into the city. When he had travelled for a day, he shouted out to the people. He said, ‘40 more days and God will destroy Nineveh.’
5 The people who lived in Nineveh believed God. They were ashamed about how they had lived. So they told everyone that they must not eat anything for several days. All the people put sackcloth on. The most important people and the least important people did that.
6 When the king of Nineveh heard about this, he got up from his throne. He took off his king’s clothes. He covered himself with sackcloth and he sat down on the dirty ground.
7 Then the king spoke to all the people in Nineveh. He said, ‘I and the important people who work for me have made a rule. No man or animal or any group of animals must taste anything. They must not eat or drink. 8 Men and women must cover themselves with sackcloth. They must cover all the animals with sackcloth, too. Everyone must shout in a loud voice to God. They must do this immediately. Everyone must do good things, not bad things. They must not fight other people. They must not be cruel people any longer. 9 Nobody knows what will happen. Even now, God may change his mind. He may not be angry any longer. He may be kind to us and so we may not die.’
10 God saw what the people in Nineveh did. He saw that they did good things now. They no longer did wrong things. So he was kind to them. He did not destroy their city as he had said.
1 But Jonah did not like that. He was certainly not happy. He became angry. 2 He prayed to the LORD. He said, ‘LORD, I spoke to you about this when I was at home. So I went quickly to Tarshish. I knew that you are a kind God. I knew that you understand people. You help them. You are full of love and you do not become angry easily. You are a God who thinks about causing bad things to happen to people. But then you decide not to do it. 3 Now, LORD, kill me. It is better for me to die than to live.’
4 But the LORD replied, ‘You have no reason to be angry.’
5 Jonah went outside and he sat down at a place to the east of the city. There he made a small hut for himself. He sat under it so that the sun would not burn him. He waited. He wanted to see what would happen to the city.
6 But God made a plant. The LORD God caused it to grow up over Jonah so that the sun would not burn Jonah’s head. He made it so that Jonah would feel good. Jonah was very happy about the plant.
7 But God had also made a worm. At dawn on the next day the worm ate some of the plant. So then the plant died. 8 When the sun rose, God caused the wind to blow from the east. The wind was very hot. The sun made Jonah’s head very hot. He became weak and ill. He wanted to die. He said, ‘It would be better for me to die than to live.’
9 But God said to Jonah, ‘Should you be angry about the plant?’
‘I should’, he said. ‘I feel so angry that I want to die.’ 10 But the LORD said, ‘You like this plant. It is important to you. But you did not plant it or cause it to grow. It grew up quickly during the night and it died before dawn. 11 But Nineveh has more than 120 000 people. They cannot understand the difference between right ways and wrong ways. Also, they have many cows. That large city is important to me.’
Info
© Wycliffe Associates (UK), 1997-2012
This version published February 2012
The translated Bible text has been through Advanced Checking.