¹ Now Yahweh ordained that a great fish should swallow Jonah; and Jonah remained in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights.

² From the belly of the fish, Jonah prayed to Yahweh, his God; he said:

³ Out of my distress I cried to Yahweh and he answered me, from the belly of Sheol I cried out; you heard my voice!

⁴ For you threw me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the floods closed round me. All your waves and billows passed over me;

⁵ then I thought, 'I am banished from your sight; how shall I ever see your holy Temple again?'

⁶ The waters round me rose to my neck, the deep was closing round me, seaweed twining round my head.

⁷ To the roots of the mountains, I sank into the underworld, and its bars closed round me for ever. But you raised my life from the Pit, Yahweh my God!

⁸ When my soul was growing ever weaker, Yahweh, I remembered you, and my prayer reached you in your holy Temple.

⁹ Some abandon their faithful love by worshipping false gods,

¹⁰ but I shall sacrifice to you with songs of praise. The vow I have made I shall fulfil! Salvation comes from Yahweh!

¹¹ Yahweh spoke to the fish, which then vomited Jonah onto the dry land.

Daily Readings   Daily readings of the Mass. 7 days/week. See Sample E-mail:    Select Gender Male Female    Zip Code:

The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) is a Catholic translation of the Bible published in 1985. The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) has become the most widely used Roman Catholic Bible outside of the United States. It has the imprimatur of Cardinal George Basil Hume.

Like its predecessor, the Jerusalem Bible, the New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) version is translated "directly from the Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic." The 1973 French translation, the Bible de Jerusalem, is followed only "where the text admits to more than one interpretation." Introductions and notes, with some modifications, are taken from the Bible de Jerusalem.

Source: The Very Reverend Dom (Joseph) Henry Wansbrough, OSB, MA (Oxon), STL (Fribourg), LSS (Rome), a monk of Ampleforth Abbey and a biblical scholar. He was General Editor of the New Jerusalem Bible. "New Jerusalem Bible, Regular Edition", pg. v.

Ten Commandments | Books of the Bible | Buy a Bible

Old Testament »

New Testament »