The Lord God appointed ¹  a little plant ²  and caused it to grow up over Jonah to be a shade over his head to rescue ³  him from his misery. ⁴  Now Jonah was very delighted ⁵  about the little plant.

Instead, Jonah immediately ¹  headed off to Tarshish ²  to escape ³  from the commission of the Lord. ⁴  He traveled ⁵  to Joppa ⁶  and found a merchant ship heading ⁷  to Tarshish. ⁸  So he paid the fare ⁹  and went aboard it to go with them to Tarshish far away from the Lord.

So Jonah went immediately to Nineveh, as the Lord had said. (Now Nineveh was an enormous city ¹  – it required three days to walk through it!) ² 

When the news ¹  reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, took off his royal robe, put on sackcloth, and sat on ashes.