A Great Fish Swallows Jonah

17Ch 2:1 in Hebrew And the Lord appointedOr had appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

Jonah's Prayer

2Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, 2saying,

"I called out to the Lord, out of my distress,and he answered me;out of the belly of Sheol I cried,and you heard my voice. 3For you cast me into the deep,into the heart of the seas,and the flood surrounded me;all your waves and your billowspassed over me. 4Then I said, 'I am driven awayfrom your sight;yet I shall again lookupon your holy temple.' 5The waters closed in over me to take my life;the deep surrounded me;weeds were wrapped about my head 6at the roots of the mountains.I went down to the landwhose bars closed upon me forever;yet you brought up my life from the pit,O Lord my God. 7When my life was fainting away,I remembered the Lord,and my prayer came to you,into your holy temple. 8Those who pay regard to vain idolsforsake their hope of steadfast love. 9But I with the voice of thanksgivingwill sacrifice to you;what I have vowed I will pay.Salvation belongs to the Lord!"

10And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.

Jonah Goes to Nineveh

3Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2"Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you."

3So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city,Hebrew a great city to God three days' journey in breadth.Or a visit was a three days' journey 4Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey. And he called out, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" 5And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.

The People of Nineveh Repent

6The word reachedOr had reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, "By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, 8but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. 9Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish."

10When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.

The Sign of Jonah

38Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, "Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you." 39But he answered them, "An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

41The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.