The Story of Jonah - Bible Stories for Kids

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The Story of Jonah

Jonah 1:1-3

There once was a man called Jonah.He was one of God's people, theIsraelites. One day God said to Jonah,"I want you to go to the city ofNineveh. Tell them they are livingsuch wicked lives, I will have topunish them."

Jonah did not like Nineveh. Thepeople of Nineveh were enemies ofGod's people.

But God was willing to forgive theNinevites if they would just changetheir ways. The Ninevites were the

cruelest people in the world at thattime. If God could forgive them, Hecould forgive anyone.

Jonah did not like this. "Whyshould God care about them?" hewondered. So Jonah did a foolishthing. He ignored God. He ran awayfrom Nineveh, rather than toward it.That way, the Ninevites would not bewarned about how angry God waswith them. Jonah wanted theNinevites to be destroyed.

But Jonah had made a mistake.There is no place where people canhide from God. He is everywhere andknows everything.

Jonah went down to the harbor, aplace called Joppa. That is where thecity of Tel-Aviv now stands.

In Joppa, Jonah wandered up anddown the docks. He was looking for aship which would take him clear tothe other side of the world. Jonahfound one headed for Tarshish. Thatwas far enough.

He went as far from Nineveh as possible. Once the ship set sail, Jonahbreathed a sigh of relief. "Now thoseevil Ninevites will get what theydeserve," he thought to himself.

Once on board, Jonah fell asleep. Hethought he could relax because he hadrun away from God. He was wrong.The Lord threw a great wind at thesea. A terrible storm shook the waves.The ship was tossed up and down androcked from one side to the other. Thesailors said, "There must be somereason why this is happening.

Someone on the ship must have madehis god angry!"

So each sailor prayed to his owngod, begging to be saved. The windhowled louder. The waves rearedhigher and higher.

The captain went below deck andshook Jonah. "How can you be

sleeping through a storm like this?" heasked. "You should be praying to yourGod. Maybe He will be able to saveus."

When the men on board heard thatJonah was a Jew, they became veryfrightened. They had heard about thisLord God of Israel. They gasped, "Youtried to run away from Him?" Eventhey knew that was impossible. Godsees everything.

"It is your God who is punishing us.Now tell us, how do we stop thisstorm?"

Jonah said, "If you throw meoverboard, the storm will go away."At first the sailors would not throwJonah into the sea. But they had nochoice. They prayed to Jonah's God,"Oh, Lord. Please don't kill us withthis storm. We haven't done anythingwrong. Only this man has." They hadno choice. They picked up Jonah andthrew him into the raging sea.Suddenly, the wind stopped howling.The waves died down

When the sailors threw him,verboard, Jonah felt something coldand slimy bump up against him. Hewould have screamed with fright if hehad not been underwater. A giant fishwas swimming around him!

Suddenly, the fish opened its mouthwide and "Swoosh!" Jonah was sweptinto its mouth. The fish had swallowedJonah!

Because the fish was so large, Jonahcould stand up inside and breatheagain. It was very dark and smelledsour.

It was not by chance that the fishhad swallowed Jonah. God had chosen this fish to teach Jonah a lesson. No matter what, he went, he could never run away from God. God wanted Jonah to do what He had been told and go to Nineveh with theLord's message.

After a while, Jonah asked God toforgive him for trying to run away. Hethanked the Lord for not forgettinghim.

After three days and three nights,the Lord made the fish spit Jonah outof its stomach. There was a great wetrush. Jonah held his breath again as heswirled around inside the fish's mouth.The next thing he knew, he was lyingon a dry beach.

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