Jonah’s prayer.

I spoke yesterday in Helen, Ga on the prayer of Jonah. What? The Chattahoochee Methodist Church- “I’d Climb The Highest Mountain” was filmed there in 1951. The church was established in 1860. Remember Tarshish?
Piqued your interest? Try Chapter 9 “The Sermon” from Moby Dick.

Jonah’s Prayer

2 Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, 2 saying,

“I called out to the Lord, out of my distress,
and he answered me;
out of the belly of Sheol I cried,
and you heard my voice.

3
For you cast me into the deep,
into the heart of the seas,
and the flood surrounded me;
all your waves and your billows
passed over me.

4
Then I said, ‘I am driven away
from your sight;
yet I shall again look
upon your holy temple.’

5
The waters closed in over me to take my life;
the deep surrounded me;
weeds were wrapped about my head

6
at the roots of the mountains.
I went down to the land
whose bars closed upon me forever;
yet you brought up my life from the pit,
O Lord my God.

7
When my life was fainting away,
I remembered the Lord,
and my prayer came to you,
into your holy temple.

8
Those who pay regard to vain idols
forsake their hope of steadfast love.

9
But I with the voice of thanksgiving
will sacrifice to you;
what I have vowed I will pay.
Salvation belongs to the Lord!”

10 And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.

English Standard Version (ESV)