Jonah the Prophet Learning to trust the Lord’s mercy

Jonah was a prophet.

The Lord told him to warn the people in Nineveh that their city would be destroyed if they did not repent.

But the people of Nineveh were enemies to the Israelites.

Jonah did not want to preach to them.

So he got on a ship to sail far away from Nineveh.

While Jonah was on the ship, a big storm came.

The men on the ship were afraid for their lives.

They asked Jonah to pray to the Lord to save them.

Jonah knew the Lord sent the storm because he was running away from what the Lord asked him to do.

Jonah wanted to save the people on the ship.

He said if they threw him into the sea, the storm would stop.

The men did not want to throw Jonah overboard.

They tried to row the ship to land, but the storm was too great.

Finally, they threw Jonah into the sea.

The storm stopped.

But then Jonah was swallowed by a large fish.

Jonah was inside the belly of the fish for three days and three nights.

During that time, Jonah prayed and repented.

He wanted to do what was right and listen to the Lord.

The Lord heard Jonah’s prayers and made the fish spit Jonah out onto dry land.

The Lord again told Jonah to preach to the people of Nineveh.

This time Jonah obeyed.

He went to Nineveh and told the people to repent or the Lord would destroy their city.

The king and his people repented.

The Lord forgave them and did not destroy Nineveh.

But Jonah was disappointed that the people had not been destroyed.

He didn’t think they deserved to be forgiven.

To teach Jonah a lesson, the Lord grew a plant to shade Jonah from the sun.

Then the plant died, and Jonah felt bad for the plant.

The Lord was teaching Jonah a lesson about His children.

Jonah learned that he should be sad when people do not repent

and that he should be happy when they do.