"Flying from the scarlet city where a Lord that knows no pity / Mocks the broken people praying round his iron throne," C.S. Lewis

Jonah 4

1  But Jonah was ill and distressed beyond measure, fuming and fretting at the outcome.

2  So he prayed unto the Lord and kept saying to Him:

O Lord,

O Lord,

O Lord,

“I knew you would do this when I was still at home.  Wasn’t that what I said?  That was why I ran away to Tarshish, because I knew that, of all things, You and You alone are a gracious and compassionate God.  You are slow to get angry and full of loving kindness – even pitying those who are miserable and distressed.”

3  “And now, O Lord, I pray that you will take my life from me so that some good will come from my death; since I prefer death to life.”

4  And the Lord said, “How good of you to be so angry for Me!”

5  So Jonah walked out and left the city and camped out on the east side of the city. He made for himself a shed and sat in the scanty shade it gave so that he could watch the show of what the Lord was going to do to the city.

6  So the Lord God chose to make a gourd to climb up over Jonah’s head to give more shade to his head. And Jonah was relieved from his distress and rejoiced over the great blessing of the gourd plant.

7  Then God chose a worm to work at eating away the inside of the gourd until the dawn of the next morning. So the worm destroyed the gourd and it withered away to nothing. 

8  And so it was when the sun rose, God made the east wind particularly hot.  Jonah was overheated by the blazing sun.  Jonah felt faint as he prayed that he preferred to die.  Over and over he kept saying, “Death! Death! I would be better off dead!”

9  And God said unto Jonah, “Is it a good thing that you are angry about the gourd?” and Jonah said “I have a right to be angry, even if it kills me!”

10  And the Lord said, “You have loving kindness toward a gourd, which you did nothing to bring about and in no way caused it to grow. A gourd, mind you, which I made to last from one night to the next without any help from you. Should not I especially have pity upon Nineveh, that great city in which there are many more than 120,000 men who do not know their right hand from their left hand, along with many cattle?