Jonah was a wise old man who lived in Israel….

long long ago.

He was loved and respected by the people.

Everybody came to him to solve their problems,

and he gave them wise advice.

God loved him because he was a good man

and he helped his fellow beings.

Jonah loved God.

He followed his teachings

and prayed to God all the time.

Nineveh was a neighboring country of Israel.

The people in this country

were known to be very evil.

They did not follow God.

They did bad things.

They were cruel,

greedy and were always fighting with other people.

Because of this God was angry

with the people of Nineveh.

One day,

God spoke to Jonah and called for his service.

Jonah,

I have something to tell you.

My Lord….

I am lucky to be of your service.

Tell me….

I am listening to you my God.

There is a placed called Nineveh

not very far from here.

The people living in this place are evil.

They steal from each other,

kill their own brothers,

and do a lot of other evil things.

Their king is lazy and selfish.

He eats,

drinks and enjoys himself

while his people are starving.

He does not care about his people.

Their actions anger me

and I have decided to destroy them.

I understand my God.

I am well aware of their actions.

They are a wretched group of people.

They are also our sworn enemies.

In 40 days,

I will destroy the land of Nineveh

and everyone living there.

This is my decision.

So be it my Lord.

You have told me all of this.

But I still do not understand

how I can be of service to you.

Tell me my Lord,

what should I do

to make your wish come true?

You are a good and righteous man Jonah.

You have always obeyed me

and followed my teachings.

I trust you and your abilities.

This is why you must go to Nineveh immediately

and talk to the people about me.

They do not know me.

You must speak about my love

You must tell them

to change their ways

and become good people.

Only you can do this.

But God,

how will I do this?

They are evil.

They will not listen to me.

Also, they are our sworn enemies.

The people of Nineveh

are constantly attacking us

and waging war against us.

They try to steal from us

and harm our women.

That is all true.

But still,

you must go and talk to them.

They will have a second chance

through you.

If they fail, they will be destroyed.

You are their only hope for survival now.

Only you can convince them

to change their ways,

and turn to me,

the one and only living God.

I have complete faith in you.

God, you have decided to destroy them anyway

after 40 days.

Then why I should I go there and risk my life?

My countrymen will be more than happy

to hear that Nineveh is going to be destroyed.

They will abandon me

if they hear that I tried to stop that

from happening!

This my will.

You must do this Jonah.

You must leave for Nineveh immediately!

Very well my Lord…

as you wish.

Jonah was very troubled

by what God had asked of him.

He was happy that

God had decided to destroy the people of Nineveh.

They were the enemies of Israel.

He did not believe

that he could change their ways.

But then,

how could he disobey God?

Jonah finally decided

he would not go to Nineveh.

He got scared

and decided to escape from Nineveh

and hide from God.

Jonah travelled far from Nineveh

over the deserts and barren lands.

Finally, he reached the sea shore

where he saw a ship

heading to another city across the sea.

He asked the captain

whether he could get on the ship.

The captain was not happy at first,

but finally agreed.

The sailors did not know

about the one true God

that Jonah served and believed in.

They worshipped stone and wooden idols.

They had a god for the sun,

another god for the moon,

another for the ocean,

and so on.

Jonah saw this,

but he did not speak anything.

He went and slept

in the lower part of the ship.

Jonah was fast asleep

in the lower part of the ship.

Once the ship had travelled a short distance,

ship got caught in a great storm!.

They where tossed around

in the water like a paper boat

Everybody on the ship was very scared

and began to cry out loud to their gods.

The men on the ship were surprised

to see Jonah sleeping peacefully

while the a great storm was raging outside.

Hey Jonah,

wake up….

Wake up!

How can you sleep like this??

There is a storm outside

and the ship is going to be torn apart!

Wake up and pray to your God!!

We have been praying to our Gods

for some time now,

but the storm is continuing

to rock the boat.

No, t

his is the work of my God,

the one and only true God

who made the whole world.

Did you do anything

to make him angry?

How can we stop this storm?

I tried to hide away from him.

He gave me a task,

but I refused to do it.

that's why he is angry at me.

Now what should we do??

There is nothing else to do.

You have no other option

but to throw me off the ship….

And then the storm will go away.

My God will leave you alone.

No,

we cannot do that.

You are a good man.

We don't want to harm you.

Let us try to throw some of the cargo

out and see if we can keep the ship afloat.

The sailors started throwing out

the packages loaded on the ship

one by one,

but the storm did not go away.

There is no use in doing this.

Throw me into the water!

Save yourself!

I hope your God keeps you safe.

When the sailors realized

that they had no other option,

they threw Jonah

off the ship into the sea.

and like a miracle,

the storms subsided.

The sea was calm

all of a sudden.

Just at that moment,

a big whale came up

and swallowed Jonah.

Jonah was scared like never before.

He was in the dark….

And cold.

There was a horrible smell around him.

Also, it was slimy

and all kinds of things were floating around him.

It was then

that He realized

that He was inside a whale!!

Jonah could not believe

this was happening to him,

but realized that God was doing all of this.

Jonah spent three days

and three nights

in the belly of the whale.

He prayed the whole time to God.

He was asking for forgiveness

and promised that he would never

try to hide away from God.

Jonah would lose hope

from time to time

and thought he would never see daylight again.

He thought about the foolish things

he had done.

How could he believe

that he could disobey God

and hide from him?

This was so stupid of him!

Alone in the cold dark

insides of the whale,

Jonah became very sad,

but he called out to God

and it gave him strength.

He believed that

God would keep him safe.

On the fourth day,

the whale opened its mouth

and spit Jonah on to the beach.

Jonah was relieved

to see the light of day,

he had been inside the

dark belly of a whale

for three days!

Then .

God spoke to him.

Jonah,

you cannot hide from me.

Whatever you do,

I am with you all the time.

I am so sorry my Lord.

I realize now how foolish I have been.

Tell me what I can do to make up for this?

Do as I told you.

You must go to Nineveh

and complete the task I gave you.

They are evil

because they do not know me.

They have not heard of my teachings.

They deserve a chance

to change their ways and become good.

I will do whatever you ask of me my Lord.

I shall go to and speak to the people

of Niveneh

about your undying love!

This time,

Jonah went to Nineveh as promised.

He talked to the people about God and his kingdom.

He talked about what had happened to him

and how God had rescued him

from the raging storm by sending a whale.

He showed them why it was important

to do good things

and be kind to people.

He taught them God's teachings

and how God was protecting them

and taking care of them at all times.

He also warned them about

God's punishment

To his surprise,

the people of Nineveh listened to him!

The king heard of Jonah

and called him to the palace.