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.

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

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

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,

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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