Jonah 3

Jonah’s Preaching

¹The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: ^{a 2}“Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh ^b and preach ^c the message that I tell you.” ³Jonah got up and went to Nineveh according to the Lord’s command.

Now Nineveh was an extremely great city, ^d,^e a three-day walk. ⁴Jonah set out on the first day of his walk in the city and proclaimed, ^f “In forty days Nineveh will be demolished! ” ⁵Then the people of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast ^g and dressed in sackcloth #— #from the greatest of them to the least.

⁶When word reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, took off his royal robe, covered himself with sackcloth, ^h and sat in ashes. ⁷Then he issued a decree ⁱ in Nineveh:

By order of the king and his nobles: No person or animal, herd or flock, is to taste anything at all. They must not eat or drink water. ⁸Furthermore, both people and animals must be covered with sackcloth, and everyone must call out earnestly to God. ^j Each must turn from his evil ways ^k and from his wrongdoing. ^{l 9}Who knows? ^m God may turn and relent; he may turn from his burning anger so that we will not perish. ⁿ

¹⁰God saw their actions #— #that they had turned from their evil ways ^o #— #so God relented from the disaster ^p he had threatened them with. And he did not do it.