God

And now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

But the LORD replied, “Have you any right to be angry?”

So the LORD God appointed a vine, and it grew up to provide shade over Jonah’s head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was greatly pleased with the plant.

When dawn came the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant so that it withered.

As the sun was rising, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint and wished to die, saying, “It is better for me to die than to live.”

Then God asked Jonah, “Have you any right to be angry about the plant?” “I do,” he replied. “I am angry enough to die!”

But the LORD said, “You cared about the plant, which you neither tended nor made grow. It sprang up in a night and perished in a night.

This is the word of the LORD that came to Micah the Moreshite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah—what he saw regarding Samaria and Jerusalem:

Hear, O peoples, all of you; listen, O earth, and everyone in it! May the Lord GOD bear witness against you, the Lord from His holy temple.

For behold, the LORD comes forth from His dwelling place; He will come down and tread on the high places of the earth.

The mountains will melt beneath Him, and the valleys will split apart, like wax before the fire, like water rushing down a slope.

Therefore I will make Samaria a heap of rubble in the open field, a planting area for a vineyard. I will pour her stones into the valley and expose her foundations.

All her carved images will be smashed to pieces; all her wages will be burned in the fire, and I will destroy all her idols. Since she collected the wages of a prostitute, they will be used again on a prostitute.

For her wound is incurable; it has reached even Judah; it has approached the gate of my people, as far as Jerusalem itself.

For the dwellers of Maroth pined for good, but calamity came down from the LORD, even to the gate of Jerusalem.

I will again bring a conqueror against you, O dweller of Mareshah. The glory of Israel will come to Adullam.

Therefore this is what the LORD says: “I am planning against this nation a disaster from which you cannot free your necks. Then you will not walk so proudly, for it will be a time of calamity.

In that day they will take up a proverb against you and taunt you with this bitter lamentation: ‘We are utterly ruined! He has changed the portion of my people. How He has removed it from me! He has allotted our fields to traitors.’”

Therefore, you will have no one in the assembly of the LORD to divide the land by lot.

Should it be said, O house of Jacob, “Is the Spirit of the LORD impatient? Are these the things He does?” Do not My words bring good to him who walks uprightly?

But of late My people have risen up like an enemy: You strip off the splendid robe from unsuspecting passersby like men returning from battle.

You drive the women of My people from their pleasant homes. You take away My blessing from their children forever.

If a man of wind were to come and say falsely, “I will preach to you of wine and strong drink,” he would be just the preacher for this people!

I will surely gather all of you, O Jacob; I will collect the remnant of Israel. I will bring them together like sheep in a pen, like a flock in the midst of its pasture— a noisy throng.

One who breaks open the way will go up before them; they will break through the gate, and go out by it. Their King will pass through before them, the LORD as their leader.