Jonah 1:1 – Jonah 3:3

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Tarshish

One day the Lord came to a man named Jonah. He wanted Jonah to go to a city called Nineveh and teach the people to be good and to do what God told them to do. But Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh because he had heard bad things about the city. But he thought he could trick God. He went and found a ship that was headed in a different direction and got on it.

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Tarshish

But God knew where Jonah was and he sent a storm that almost sank the ship. Everyone was scared and cried out to the false gods that they worshiped. Jonah was in the ship sleeping when the captain came to him and asked, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us and we will not die.”

The people on the ship knew that Jonah was trying to hide from God and they asked him what they needed to do to be safe. Jonah told them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm is here.” But the men didn’t want to do that so they tried to row back to land. But they couldn’t because the storm got worse. They decided they would throw Jonah overboard.

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Tarshish

After they threw Jonah overboard the storm went away. This made all the men in the boat believe in God and they offered a sacrifices and made a vow to Him that they would worship Him.

But God wasn’t going to let Jonah die, He had a job for him to do. So God sent a whale to swallow Jonah.

Jonah was in the whale for 3 days and 3 nights! While in the whale Jonah prayed to God. He told him he was sorry and that he would do what God told him to, he would go to Nineveh and he would teach the people about Him. So God commanded the whale to spit Jonah on the dry land.

After the whale spit Jonah out God came to Jonah and told him to go Nineveh again and teach them His word. Jonah obeyed God this time and went to Nineveh.