Chapter 2

¹ Now the Lord had commanded a great whale to swallow up Jonas: and Jonas was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights.

² And Jonas prayed to the Lord his God out of the belly of the whale, ³ and said,

I cried in my affliction to the Lord my God, and he hearkened to me, even to my cry out of the belly of hell: thou heardest my voice. ⁴ Thou didst cast me into the depths of the heart of the sea, and the floods compassed me: all thy billows and thy waves have passed upon me. ⁵ And I said, I am cast out of thy presence: shall I indeed look again toward thy holy temple? ⁶ Water was poured around me to the soul: the ¹lowest deep compassed me, my head went down ⁷ to the clefts of the mountains; I went down into the earth, whose bars are the everlasting barriers: yet, O Lord my God, let my ruined life be restored.

⁸ When my soul was failing ²me, I remembered the Lord; and may my prayer come to thee into thy holy temple. ⁹ They that observe ³vanities and lies have forsaken their own mercy. ¹⁰ But I will sacrifice to thee with the voice of praise and thanksgiving: all that I have vowed I will pay to thee, ⁴the Lord of my salvation.

¹¹ And the whale was commanded by the Lord, and it cast up Jonas on the dry land.

Chapter 3

¹ And the word of the Lord came to Jonas the second time, saying, ² Rise, go to Nineve, the great city, and preach in it according to the former preaching which I spoke to thee of. ³ And Jonas arose, and went to Nineve, as the Lord had spoken. Now Nineve was ⁵an exceeding great city, of about three days' journey. ⁴ And Jonas began to enter into the city about a day's journey, and he proclaimed, and said, Yet three days, and Nineve shall be overthrown.

⁵ And the men of Nineve believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloths, from the greatest of them to the least of them. ⁶ And the word reached the king of Nineve, and he arose from off his throne, and took off his raiment from him, and put on sackcloth, and sat on ashes.

1096

⁷ And proclamation was made, and it was commanded in Nineve by the king an by his great men, saying, Let not men, or cattle, or oxen, or sheep, taste any thing, nor feed, nor drink water. ⁸ So men and cattle were clothed with sackcloths, and cried earnestly to God; and they turned every one from their evil way, and from the iniquity that was in their hands, saying, ⁹ Who knows if God will repent, and turn from his fierce anger, and so we shall not perish?

¹⁰ And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil ways; and God repented of the evil which he had said he would do to them; and he did it not.