Jonah Bible stories for kids
Jonah is the prophet who ran the other way. God tells him to go to Nineveh, a great and cruel city far to the east, and he pays his own fare on a ship sailing west as far as ships go. Children love him for that, and for the fish, and they are usually surprised to find out the fish is not the end. The end is Jonah sitting on a hill, cross with God for forgiving a city he wanted punished.
These three stories are the whole book of Jonah, all four chapters, about seventeen minutes together. All three are in full text on this site and told for ages 3 to 8, and each one picks up exactly where the last one stopped.
3 stories, about 17 minutes of listening
Jonah’s story, in order
Jonah Runs from God
God tells Jonah to go to the great city of Nineveh, and Jonah buys a ticket on a ship sailing as far the other way as it can go. Out at sea, a wind comes down so hard the sailors think the whole ship is about to break apart.
Jonah 1, 7 min, ages 3-8
Jonah and the Whale
No sky, no stars and no morning: Jonah is somewhere no person has ever been, deep under the sea. All he can do there is talk to God, and what he says may surprise you.
Jonah 2, 4 min, ages 3-8
Jonah and Nineveh
God gives Jonah a second chance to go to Nineveh, an enormous city that has been cruel for a long time. This time he goes and says one sentence, and what happens next makes Jonah angrier than the storm ever did.
Jonah 3-4, 6 min, ages 3-8
Listening through Jonah’s life
Jonah Runs from God is seven minutes from Jonah 1, told from up on the deck with the sailors rather than down in the dark with Jonah. God hurls a great wind onto the sea, the sailors pray and throw the cargo over the side, the lot falls on Jonah, and it is Jonah himself who tells them to throw him in. They row for the shore first, until they cannot, and when he goes over the side the sea goes still. Before it ends, the story says that God had the fish ready before Jonah ever reached the water.
Jonah and the Whale is four minutes from Jonah 2, and almost all of it is a man talking to God in the dark. Three days and three nights inside the fish, seaweed round his head in the prayer the Bible writes down, and Jonah saying thank you while he is still at the bottom of everything. Then God speaks to the fish and it puts him down on dry land. The Bible calls it a great fish; "whale" comes from older English Bibles, and the story page explains the difference.
Jonah and Nineveh is six and a half minutes from Jonah 3 and 4. God says go a second time, and this time Jonah goes and says one sentence. The whole city believes him, the king takes off his robe and sits in the dust, and a decree puts even the cows and goats in scratchy sackcloth. God spares the city, and Jonah, sitting under a plant God grew for his shade and a worm then ate, finally says why he ran: he knew God would forgive them. The book ends on God's question, and so does the story.
Every page has a free audio preview, the memory verse from the World English Bible, discussion questions and a prayer. Heard together, the three tell a story children rarely get: not really about a man swallowed by a fish, but about a God who goes all the way down after someone running from Him, and then cares about a whole city of strangers too.
Common questions
- Is the story of Jonah suitable for a three-year-old?
- All three are written for ages 3 to 8. Jonah and the Whale is the calmest and the shortest, four minutes of a man praying somewhere dark and safe. Jonah Runs from God has a storm strong enough to frighten sailors, and Jonah and Nineveh ends on a question rather than a happy ending, so both suit four and up a little better.
- Are the storm and the fish frightening?
- The storm is loud and the ship creaks, and Jonah is thrown into the sea, at his own request. The story page has a note for parents on that. What settles most children is that the telling says the fish was sent ahead of time and that it is not a monster. It is how God catches Jonah, and the story says so before your child has time to worry.
- Do we have to listen to them in order?
- It is much better if you do. Jonah Runs from God stops with Jonah inside the fish and promises the rest for another night, Jonah and the Whale opens with "last time, you heard how he got here", and Jonah and Nineveh begins with God saying it twice. Three evenings in a row is the natural way to play them.
- What does the Bible say about Jonah that these stories leave out?
- Very little from the book itself, which is only four chapters. What the stories do not explain is why Nineveh mattered so much: it was a great city of Assyria, the empire that would later conquer the northern kingdom of Israel, which helps explain why Jonah did not want it forgiven. Elsewhere, 2 Kings 14 mentions Jonah as a prophet in Israel, and in the Gospels Jesus speaks of the sign of Jonah, three days and three nights in the fish.
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