Immerse: Prophets - Flipbook - Page 453
JONAH
The Lord gave this message to Jonah son of Amittai: “Get up and go to
the great city of Nineveh. Announce my judgment against it because I have
seen how wicked its people are.”
But Jonah got up and went in the opposite direction to get away from the
Lord. He went down to the port of Joppa, where he found a ship leaving
for Tarshish. He bought a ticket and went on board, hoping to escape from
the Lord by sailing to Tarshish.
But the Lord hurled a powerful wind over the sea, causing a violent
storm that threatened to break the ship apart. Fearing for their lives, the
desperate sailors shouted to their gods for help and threw the cargo over
board to lighten the ship.
But all this time Jonah was sound asleep down in the hold. So the cap
tain went down after him. “How can you sleep at a time like this?” he
shouted. “Get up and pray to your god! Maybe he will pay attention to us
and spare our lives.”
Then the crew cast lots to see which of them had offended the gods
and caused the terrible storm. When they did this, the lots identified Jo
nah as the culprit. “Why has this awful storm come down on us?” they
demanded. “Who are you? What is your line of work? What country are
you from? What is your nationality?”
Jonah answered, “I am a Hebrew, and I worship the Lord, the God of
heaven, who made the sea and the land.”
The sailors were terrified when they heard this, for he had already told
them he was running away from the Lord. “Oh, why did you do it?” they
groaned. And since the storm was getting worse all the time, they asked
him, “What should we do to you to stop this storm?”
“Throw me into the sea,” Jonah said, “and it will become calm again. I
know that this terrible storm is all my fault.”
Instead, the sailors rowed even harder to get the ship to the land. But
the stormy sea was too violent for them, and they couldn’t make it. Then
they cried out to the Lord, Jonah’s God. “O Lord,” they pleaded, “don’t
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