running away from god

⁷Where will I go from your Spirit? And where will I flee from your face? ⁸If I ascend into heaven, you are there. If I descend into Hell, you are near. ⁹If I assume my feathers in early morning, and dwell in the utmost parts of the sea, ¹⁰even there, your hand will lead me forth, and your right hand will hold me.

⁹The Lord is not delaying his promise, as some imagine, but he does act patiently for your sake, not wanting anyone to perish, but wanting all to be turned back to penance.

¹And the Lord prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights. ²And Jonah prayed to the Lord, his God, from the belly of the fish. ³And he said: “I cried out to the Lord from my tribulation, and he heeded me. From the belly of hell, I cried out, and you heeded my voice. ⁴And you have thrown me into the deep, in the heart of the sea, and a flood has encircled me. All your whirlpools and your waves have passed over me. ⁵And I said: I am expelled from the sight of your eyes. Yet, truly, I will see your holy temple again. ⁶The waters surrounded me, even to the soul. The abyss has walled me in. The ocean has covered my head.

⁷For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of virtue, and of love, and of self-restraint.

³⁵Then who will separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation? Or anguish? Or famine? Or nakedness? Or peril? Or persecution? Or the sword? ³⁶For it is as it has been written: “For your sake, we are being put to death all day long. We are being treated like sheep for the slaughter.” ³⁷But in all these things we overcome, because of him who has loved us. ³⁸For I am certain that neither death, nor life, nor Angels, nor Principalities, nor Powers, nor the present things, nor the future things, nor strength, ³⁹nor the heights, nor the depths, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

⁹The heart is depraved above all things, and it is unsearchable, who can know it?

¹³O Lord, Hope of Israel: all who forsake you will be confounded. Those who withdraw from you will be written into the earth. For they have abandoned the Lord, the Source of living waters.

⁴⁰For just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights, so shall the Son of man be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights.

¹⁰Who is there among you who fears the Lord? Who hears the voice of his servant? Who has walked in darkness, and there is no light in him? Let him hope in the name of the Lord, and let him lean upon his God. ¹¹Behold, all you who kindle a fire, wrapped in flames: walk in the light of your fire and in the flames that you have kindled. This has been done to you by my hand. You will sleep in anguish.

¹And the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying: ²Rise, and go to Nineveh, the great city. And preach in it the preaching that I say to you. ³And Jonah rose, and he went to Nineveh in accordance with the word of the Lord. And Nineveh was a great city of three days’ journey. ⁴And Jonah began to enter into the city one day’s journey. And he cried out and said, “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed.” ⁵And the men of Nineveh believed in God. And they proclaimed a fast, and they put on sackcloth, from the greatest all the way to the least. ⁶And word reached the king of Nineveh. And he rose from his throne, and he threw off his robe from himself and was clothed in sackcloth, and he sat in ashes.

⁷Where will I go from your Spirit? And where will I flee from your face?

³⁷For no word will be impossible with God.”

⁹If we confess our sins, then he is faithful and just, so as to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all iniquity.

³²I have run by way of your commandments, when you enlarged my heart.