Jonah 1 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.

A message came from Yahweh to Jonah son of Amittai:

"Get up and go to Nineveh, that huge city, and shout against it, because the harm they do has come up in front of me."

But Jonah got up to run to Tarshish, away from Yahweh. He went down to Joppa and found a ship heading for Tarshish, paid the fare, and went down into it to sail with them to Tarshish, away from Yahweh.

Then Yahweh threw a great wind at the sea, and the storm was so violent that the ship itself thought it was about to break up.

The sailors were terrified, and every one of them called out to his own god. They threw the ship's cargo into the sea to lighten the load. Meanwhile Jonah had gone down into the bottom of the ship, stretched out, and fallen into a dead sleep.

The captain came down to him and said, "What are you doing asleep? Get up and call on your god. Maybe he'll give us a thought and we won't die."

Then the sailors said to each other, "Come on, let's draw lots and find out whose fault this disaster is." So they drew lots, and the lot fell on Jonah.

So they said to him, "Tell us, since this disaster is here because of you: what do you do for a living? Where have you come from? What country are you from? Which people are you from?"

He said, "I'm a Hebrew, and I fear Yahweh, the God of the sky, the one who made the sea and the dry land."

The men were seized with fear. They said to him, "What have you done?" They already knew he was running from Yahweh, because he had told them.

They said to him, "What should we do with you to make the sea settle down for us?" The sea was getting rougher by the minute.

He said, "Pick me up and throw me into the sea, and it will settle down for you. I know this huge storm is on you because of me."

The men rowed hard to get back to dry land, and they couldn't do it, because the sea kept getting rougher against them.

So they called out to Yahweh: "Please, Yahweh, don't let us die for taking this man's life. Don't hold us guilty of killing an innocent man. You are Yahweh. You have done what you wanted to do."

Then they picked Jonah up and threw him into the sea, and the sea stopped raging.

The men were struck with a huge fear of Yahweh. They made an offering to Yahweh and made him promises.

Yahweh assigned a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish for three days and three nights.