UST YNA Chapter 1

1 There was a man named Jonah, the son of Amittai. It happened one day that Yahweh spoke to him. This is what Yahweh said: 2 “I have seen that the people of Nineveh are continually doing things that are very evil. Therefore, get moving. Go to Nineveh, that huge capital city of Assyria, and proclaim to the people there that I am planning to punish them for their evil actions.” 3 So Jonah went, but in the opposite direction, towards the far-away city of Tarshish, thinking that he could get away from Yahweh there. He went down to the port at the city of Joppa and found a ship that was about to go to Tarshish. The captain of the ship asked him for money and he gave it to him. Then he went down into the ship in order to go with the crew of the ship to Tarshish, in order to get away from Yahweh.

4 But Yahweh caused a strong wind to blow over the sea, and such an enormous storm happened that the waves were about to break the ship apart. 5 The sailors were frightened and each one prayed loudly to the god that he worshiped for that god to save them from the storm. They even threw the cargo from the ship into the sea in order to make the ship lighter so that it would not so easily take on water and sink. While all of this was going on, Jonah was down inside the ship, lying down and sleeping soundly!

6 Then the captain of the crew went down to where Jonah was sleeping. He wakened Jonah and said to him, “Something must be wrong with you, to sleep during a storm like this! Get up! Pray earnestly to the god that you worship! Perhaps that god will think about us and save us.”

7 After awhile one of the sailors said to the others, “We need to cast lots, to determine who has caused this terrible thing to happen to us!” They all agreed, so they cast lots, and the lot indicated Jonah.

8 So the sailors said these things to Jonah: “You must tell us who has caused this terrible thing to happen to us. What kind of work do you do? Where do you come from? What country are you from? What group of people do you belong to?”

9 Jonah answered them, “I am a Hebrew. I worship Yahweh, the One True God who lives in heaven. He is the one who made both the sea and the land.” 10 Jonah also told the sailors that he was trying to get away from Yahweh in order to avoid doing something that Yahweh had told him to do. So now, when they learned that Yahweh was the one controlling the sea, they were terrified.

One of the sailors said to Jonah, “You have done a terrible thing! Now we are all about to die because of you!” 11 The storm continued to become worse, and the waves continued to become bigger. So one of the sailors asked Jonah, “What should we do to you so that the sea might calm down and stop threatening us?”

12 Jonah told them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea. If you do that, the sea will calm down and stop threatening you. This will work because I am certain that this terrible storm happened to you because I did not do what Yahweh told me to do.”

13 But the sailors did not want to do that. Instead, they tried hard to row the ship back to the land. But they could not do it because the waves became even bigger and stronger against them. 14 Finally, all of the sailors prayed to Yahweh, “O Yahweh, you were the one who controlled all of these things that have happened to us, including this storm and the lot that we cast. Therefore we beg you, Yahweh, please do not let us die because of this man, no, do not kill us for killing someone who has done nothing against us.” 15 Then they picked Jonah up and threw him into the sea. Immediately, the sea became calm. 16 When that happened, the sailors became greatly awed at how powerful Yahweh was. They offered a sacrifice to Yahweh and solemnly promised to worship him.

17 Meanwhile, Yahweh caused a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish for three days and three nights.

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