Bible story for kids · Jonah 1 to 4
Jonah and the big fish
God told Jonah, “Go to the great city of Nineveh. Tell them I have seen the wrong they are doing.”
But Jonah did not want to go. He got on a ship going the other way.
God sent a great wind, and a huge storm hit the sea. The sailors were afraid the ship would break apart. But Jonah was asleep down inside the ship.
Jonah told the sailors, “This storm is my fault. I am running away from God. Throw me into the sea, and it will be calm.” The sailors tried to row to shore, but they could not. So they threw Jonah into the sea, and the sea became calm.
God sent a great fish to swallow Jonah. Jonah was inside the fish for three days and three nights. There, he prayed to God.
Then God spoke to the fish, and it spat Jonah out onto dry land.
God told Jonah a second time, “Go to Nineveh.” This time Jonah went. He told the people, “In forty days, Nineveh will be destroyed.”
The people of Nineveh believed God. Everyone, from the king to the smallest, said sorry and turned from their wrong ways. And God did not destroy the city.
Jonah was angry that God forgave them. So God taught Jonah a lesson with a plant that gave him shade and then died. God said, “You cared about a plant. Should I not care about this great city, with all its people and animals?”
From the Bible
Should I not care about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 people who do not know their right hand from their left, and many animals as well?”
Talk about it
- Why do you think Jonah ran away?
- God gave Jonah a second chance. When have you needed a second chance?
- Jonah did not want God to forgive Nineveh. Is it ever hard to want good things for someone you don’t like?
Read Jonah 1 to 4 in the Bible
For grown-ups: what the text says
The Bible says a “great fish” (Jonah 1:17), not a whale. Many storybooks stop when Jonah gets out of the fish, but the book’s point comes at the end: Jonah is angry that God is “gracious and compassionate” (Jonah 4:2), and the book ends with God’s question. Jesus spoke of “the sign of Jonah” and his three days (Matthew 12:39-41).