Jonah
and the Fish
For
use after Lesson 18.
Sight
Words to Know
to,
the, from, who, into, of, done, one, once
there,
very, where
was,
as
could,
should, would
are,
were
you,
all, have, for, far, they, their
don't
come,
someone
Sight
or Common Words Child Should Be Becoming Familiar With
people
know,
knew
want,
here, down
which
Words
above Instructional Level (From Context, Parent)
Point
out what a child knows about the word; briefly explain rules he doesn’t know
yet.
find,
storm, full, choice, mouth, worm
thing,
think, sure
amaze
(2 syllables, but otherwise mastered)
about,
future, deserve, suffer, Tarshish, sailor, belly, after, sorry, forgave, angry,
pity
Once there was a man named Jonah. He
went from place to place to tell people about God. With God’s help, he could
even tell the future! But then one day things changed.
“Jonah,” said God, “I want you to go
to Nineveh. The people there are very wicked. They do not know about Me.”
“Nineveh!” said Jonah. “I can’t go
to Nineveh!”
“You must go to Nineveh,” said God.
“If no one tells the Ninevites about me, they will stay wicked. And then I will
put an end to Nineveh. But I want them to have a chance to change.”
“You should put an end to Nineveh!”
said Jonah. “The people of Nineveh don’t deserve a chance. You should kill them
all now.”
“Jonah, go to Nineveh to preach,”
said God. “Teach the people about Me.”
But Jonah did not wish to teach the
people of Nineveh about God. He wanted them to suffer for their wicked ways. So
he got on a ship for Tarshish, which was far away. God would not find him in
Tarshish. The sun shone and the sea was smooth, and Jonah was sure that he
could get away from God.
But as soon as the ship was away
from land, a big storm blew up. The ship pitched and the sea frothed. It seemed
sure that the ship would be lost.
“Who did this?” cried the sailors.
“Someone here is bad luck!” Jonah was afraid. If the sailors knew it was him,
they would throw him off the ship into the sea. So he hid.
But the sailors cast lots, and they
showed that it was Jonah that had made the storm come. Jonah was full of shame.
“God is angry with me,” he said. “Throw me into the sea, and then you will be
safe.”
The sailors did not want to throw
Jonah into the sea. But at last they had no choice. They tossed him in, and the
waves stopped right away. They were amazed, and they prayed to Jonah’s god.
Jonah fell deep into the sea, and
soon a huge fish came and ate him up. But in the fish’s belly, Jonah prayed to
God. Once he saw light at the fish’s mouth, and he was glad in spite of where
he was. Then after three days God made the fish swim to the coast and spit him
on the sand.
“Go to Nineveh,” God said. “Tell the
people there about Me.”
This time Jonah went to Nineveh to
teach. When he spoke about God, the people were sorry for their wicked ways.
They wore sackcloth and ashes and prayed to God, and God forgave them.
When Jonah was done in Nineveh, he
went away, angry. He still did not think that God should have saved Nineveh.
The sun beat down on him, so God made a shrub grow up to shade him. Jonah sat
by it in the cool and blessed the plant. But that night, God made a worm eat
its roots, and it died. Jonah was very sad and angry.
“Are you sorry for the shrub?” asked
God.
“Yes,” said Jonah. “I wish to die.”
“You have pity for this plant,” said
God, “which grew in one night and died the next. But you have no pity for
Nineveh, where there were 120,000 people who did not know right and wrong?”
No comments:
Post a Comment