1 The Lord spoke his word to Jonah son of Amittai:
2 “Get up, go to the great city of Nineveh, and preach against it, because I see the evil things they do.”
3 But Jonah got up to run away from the Lord by going to Tarshish. He went to the city of Joppa, where he found a ship that was going to the city of Tarshish. Jonah paid for the trip and went aboard, planning to go to Tarshish to run away from the Lord.
4 But the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, which made the sea so stormy that the ship was in danger of breaking apart.
5 The sailors were afraid, and each man cried to his own god. They began throwing the cargo from the ship into the sea to make the ship lighter.But Jonah had gone down far inside the ship to lie down, and he fell fast asleep.