Jonah 4
1THEREUPON Jonas was exceedingly grieved and confounded,
2and he prayed to the Lord and said, O Lord were not these my words, when I was yet in my own country? For which cause I attempted to flee to Tharsis. For I knew that thou art compassionate and merciful, longsuffering and abundant in kindness and relentest at evils.
3Now, therefore, O Sovereign Lord, take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.
4And the Lord said to Jonas, Art thou very sorry?
5(Now Jonas had gone out of the city and sat over against it, and had made for himself a booth and sat under it until he should see what would befall the city.)
6And the Lord had given orders to a gourd vine, and it had sprung up over the head of Jonas to be a shade over his head to shade him on account of his sufferings; and Jonas was exceedingly glad of the gourd vine.
7But early the next morning God gave orders to a worm and it smote the gourd and it withered.
8And when the sun rose God ordered a burning wind to spring up and the sun beat upon Jonas’ head so that he became faint and abandoned himself to despair and said, It is better for me to die than to live.
9And God said to Jonas, Art thou very sorry for the gourd vine? And he said, I am sorry even to death.
10Thereupon the Lord said, Thou hast compassion for the gourd, for which thou hast not toiled and which thou hast not nourished, which sprang up in a night and perished in a night.
11And shall not I have compassion on Ninive, this great city, in which there are more than one hundred and twenty thousand of the human species who know not their right hand and their left, and also much cattle?