Jonas

Chapter 2

  1. 1

    And what of Jonas? At the Lord’s bidding, a great sea-beast had swallowed him up; and there, in the belly of it, three days spent he and three nights.

  2. 2

    This was the prayer which Jonas made to the Lord his God, there in the belly of the sea-beast:

  3. 3

    Call I on the Lord in my peril, redress he grants me;1 from the very womb of the grave call I, thou art listening to me!

  4. 4

    Here in the depths of the sea’s heart thou wouldst cast me away, with the flood all about me, eddy of thine, wave of thine, sweeping over me,

  5. 5

    till it seemed as if I were shut out from thy regard: yet life thou grantest me; I shall gaze on thy holy temple2 once again.

  6. 6

    Around me the deadly waters close, the depths engulf me, the weeds are wrapped about my head;

  7. 7

    mountain caverns I must plumb, the very bars of earth my unrelenting prison; and still, O Lord my God, thou wilt raise me, living, from the tomb.

  8. 8

    Daunted this heart, yet still of the Lord I would bethink me; prayer of mine should reach him, far away in his holy temple!

  9. 9

    Let fools that court false worship all hope of pardon forgo;

  10. 10

    mine to do sacrifice in thy honour, vows made and paid to the Lord, my deliverer!

  11. 11

    And now, at the Lord’s bidding, the sea-beast cast Jonas up again, high and dry on the beach.