Jonah 4

1 But this seemed very wrong to Jonah and he became angry.

And it is grievous to Jonah—a great evil—and he is displeased at it;

2 He prayed to the Lord and said, ‘Ah, Lord, wasn’t this what I said when I was still in my own country? That was why I fled at once to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God, patient, and loving and ready to forgive.

and he prays to YHWH, and he says, “Ah, now, O YHWH, is this not my word while I was in my own land—therefore I was beforehand [going] to flee to Tarshish—that I have known that You [are] a God, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in kindness, and relenting of evil?

3 Therefore, Lord, I beg you, take my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live!’

And now, O YHWH, please take my soul from me, for better [is] my death than my life.”

4 But the Lord said, ‘Are you doing right in being angry?’

And YHWH says, “Is doing good displeasing to you?”

5 Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down on the east side, and there made a hut for himself and sat under it, waiting to see what would become of the city.

And Jonah goes forth from the city, and sits on the east of the city, and makes a shelter for himself there, and sits under it in the shade, until he sees what is in the city.

6 And the Lord arranged for a bush to grow up over Jonah as a shade for his head to make him comfortable. The bush gave Jonah great pleasure;

And YHWH God appoints a gourd, and causes it to come up over Jonah, to be a shade over his head, to give deliverance to him from his affliction, and Jonah rejoices because of the gourd [with] great joy.

7 but at dawn the next day God arranged for a worm which attacked the bush, so that it wilted.

And God appoints a worm at the going up of the dawn on the next day, and it strikes the gourd, and it dries up.

8 And when the sun rose, God arranged a hot east wind. And the sun beat upon Jonah’s head, so that he was faint and begged that he might die, saying, ‘It is better for me to die than to live.’

And it comes to pass, about the rising of the sun, that God appoints a cutting east wind, and the sun strikes on the head of Jonah, and he wraps himself up, and asks for his soul to die, and says, “Better [is] my death than my life.”

9 But God said to Jonah, ‘Are you doing right in being angry about the bush?’ He replied, ‘I have every right to be as angry as I could possibly be!’

And God says to Jonah: “Is doing good displeasing to you, because of the gourd?” And he says, “To do good is displeasing to me—to death.”

10 The Lord said, ‘You care about a bush which has cost you no trouble and which you have not made grow, which came up in a night and wilted in a night.

And YHWH says, “You have had pity on the gourd, for which you did not labor, neither did you nourish it, which came up [as] a son of night, and perished [as] a son of night,

11 Should I not care for the great city Nineveh, in which there are one hundred and twenty thousand people who do not know their right hand from their left; and many cattle too?’

and I—do I not have pity on Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than one hundred twenty thousand of mankind, who have not known between their right hand and their left—and much livestock?”