Jonah 3:3–10

³Jonah got up and went to Nineveh according to the Lord’s command.

Now Nineveh was an extremely great city,^Fo a three-day walk. ⁴Jonah set out on the first day of his walk in the city and proclaimed,^p “In forty days Nineveh will be demolished!” ⁵Then the people of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast^q 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,^r and sat in ashes. ⁷Then he issued a decree^s 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.^t Each must turn from his evil ways^u and from his wrongdoing.^{G 9}Who knows?^v God may turn and relent; he may turn from his burning anger so that we will not perish.^w

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