Drawing on the account of Jonah being commanded by God to go and preach what God had told him to say to the 'great city' of Nineveh, and his reluctance to do so, we learn of the prophet's experience having sheltered under the plant -a gourd- that had grown up in a night, and of the plant -the gourd- having withered and died. This sermon illustrates six contrasts between Jonah's pity for the plant -the gourd-, and the Lord's pity for lost sinners.