Jonah 3

Jonah Goes to Nineveh

1 The word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time, saying,

2 “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message I tell you.”

3 So Jonah got up and went to Nineveh according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was a huge city, taking three days to walk across.

4 Jonah started going through the city one day’s walk, and he called out, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.”

Nineveh Repents

5 The people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them.

6 When the message reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, took off his royal robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.

7 He issued a proclamation in Nineveh: “By order of the king and his nobles, no man or animal, herd or flock, is to taste anything. Do not let them eat or drink water.

8 Both people and animals must be covered with sackcloth. Everyone must call out urgently to God. Let them turn from their evil ways and from the violence in their hands.

9 Who knows, God may turn and relent, turn away from His burning anger so we do not perish.”

10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God relented from the disaster He had said He would bring on them, and He did not do it.