Jonah 3

Jonah’s Preaching

3Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: ^v2“Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh ^wand preach ^xthe message that I tell you.” ³So Jonah got up and went to Nineveh according to the Lord’s command.

Now Nineveh was an extremely large city, ^yza three-day walk. ^a4Jonah set out on the first day of his walk in the city and proclaimed, ^b“In 40 days Nineveh will be demolished!” ⁵The men of Nineveh believed in God. ^cThey proclaimed a fast ^dand 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, put on sackcloth, ^eand sat in ashes. ⁷Then he issued a decree ^fin Nineveh:

By order of the king and his nobles: No man or beast, herd or flock, is to taste anything at all. They must not eat or drink water. ⁸Furthermore, both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth, and everyone must call out earnestly to God. ^gEach must turn from his evil ways ^hand from the violence ⁱhe is doing. ^j9Who knows? ^kGod may turn and relent; He may turn from His burning anger so that we will not perish. ^l

¹⁰Then God saw their actions—that they had turned from their evil ways ^m—so God relented from the disaster ⁿHe had threatened to do to them. And He did not do it.