1But this displeased Jonah very much, and he was very angry.
2He prayed to the LORD and said, "O LORD, please, was this not what I said when I was still in my own country? That is why I fled before to Tarshish. For I knew that you are a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and that you turn back from sending harm."
3"So now, O LORD, I beg you, take my life from me. It is better for me to die than to live."
4Then the LORD said, "Do you do well to be angry?"
5So Jonah went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city. There he made himself a shelter, and sat under it in the shade, until he might see what would happen to the city.
6And the LORD God prepared a gourd and made it grow up over Jonah, to be a shade over his head and to save him from his misery. So Jonah was very glad about the gourd.
7But when the morning came the next day, God prepared a worm, and it struck the gourd so that it withered.
8When the sun rose, God prepared a fierce east wind. The sun beat down on Jonah's head, so that he grew faint. He wished in himself to die, and said, "It is better for me to die than to live."
9And God said to Jonah, "Do you do well to be angry about the gourd?" And he said, "I do well to be angry, angry enough to die."
10Then the LORD said, "You had pity on the gourd, which you did not work for and did not make grow. It came up in a night, and it died in a night."
11"And should I not spare Nineveh, that great city? In it there are more than sixscore thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left hand, and also much cattle."