flee
to Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and full of
compassion, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy, and repentest thee of
the evil. Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me;
for it is better for me to die than to live."

And the Lord said, "Doest thou well to be angry?" Then Jonah went out of
the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a
shelter, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would
become of the city. And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it to
come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head. So Jonah
was exceeding glad because of the gourd. But God prepared a worm when
the morning rose the next day, and it ate the gourd, that it withered.
And it came to pass, when the sun arose, that God prepared a sultry east
wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and
requested for himself that he might die, and said, "It is better for me
to die than to live."

And God said to Jonah, "Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd?"

And he said, "I do well to be angry even unto death."

And the Lord said, "Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for which thou
hast not labored, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night,
and perished in a night: and should not I have pity on Nineveh, that
great city; wherein are more than sixty thousand persons that cannot
discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much
cattle?"

{172}

SAMSON.

THE STORY OF A MAN WITH A STRONG BODY, WHO OFTEN YIELDED TO TEMPTATION,
AND WHO FELL BECAUSE HE WAS NOT STRONG IN SPIRIT.

_How Samson Slew a Lion and Made a Riddle_.

(There was a man of the tribe of Dan, whose name was Manoah, and he and
his wife had a son whose name was Samson, and Samson had strength of
body above all other men of his time.)

And Samson went down to Timnah, and saw a woman in Timnah of the
daughters of the Philistines. And he came up and told his father and his
mother, and said, "I have seen a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the
Philistines: now therefore get her for me to be my wife."

Then his father and his mother said to him, "Is there not a woman among
the daughters of thy brethren, or among all my people, that thou goest
to take a wife of the Philistines?"

And Samson said to his father, "Get her for me; for she pleaseth me
well."

But his father and his mother knew not that it was of the Lord; for he
sought an occas