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Elisha and Jonah 253
end of forty days they departed from the path of piety, and they became more sinful than ever. Then the punishment threatened by Jonah overtook them, and they were swal- lowed up by the earth."
Jonah's suffering in the watery abyss had been so severe that by way of compensation God exempted him from death: living he was permitted to enter Paradise.88 Like Jonah, his wife was known far and wide for her piety. She had gained fame particularly through her pilgrimage to Je- rusalem, a duty which, by reason of her sex, she was not obliged to fulfil.39 On one of these pilgrimages it was that the prophetical spirit first descended upon Jonah.40
