In Jonah’s defense, what God called him to do was not as simple as the tasks we fall short of today. Please understand that the book of Jonah was written in a very hostile time. The City of Nineveh was where modern-day Iraq now sits. The task that God was calling Jonah to do was a very difficult task. God set the kingdoms up through David, then there was a division in the kingdoms. There was the northern kingdom, which was Israel and the southern kingdom, which was Judah. Jonah was a prophet of God, living in the northern kingdom, where all the kings were extremely evil. They were not doing godly things. In fact, they were “runaways” themselves. Jonah was a prophet of God in this very hostile and evil environment. His job description was to speak into people’s lives based on what God had told him to speak.