Jonah and the Great Fish

God asked Jonah to go to Nineveh, an enemy city, and call it to conversion. But Jonah did not want his enemies forgiven, so he boarded a ship… headed the opposite way.

At sea a huge storm broke out. Jonah admitted he was fleeing from God and asked to be thrown into the water. Then a great fish swallowed him, and inside it Jonah spent three days and three nights, praying and returning to God with his whole heart.

The fish returned him to dry land, and this time Jonah obeyed. He preached in Nineveh, and to his surprise, the whole city converted. God forgave the people Jonah had thought unforgivable.

Jonah's story teaches that God's mercy is bigger than our grudges and that no one is beyond his reach. Jesus himself used the 'sign of Jonah' — three days in the belly of the fish — as an image of his own death and resurrection.

• Jonah 1–4 — The whole book of Jonah (Jonas in the Douay-Rheims): the flight, the great fish, and God's mercy on Nineveh.
• Matthew 12:39-41 — Jesus recalls the sign of Jonah when speaking of his own death and resurrection.

• Noah's Ark
• Jesus Calming the Storm
• Moses Parting the Red Sea