³So Jonah obeyed the Lord and got up and went to Nineveh. It was a very large city; just to walk across it took a person three days. ⁴After Jonah had entered the city and walked for one day, he preached to the people, saying, “After forty days, Nineveh will be destroyed!”

⁵The people of Nineveh believed God. They announced that they would fast for a while, and they put on rough cloth to show their sadness. All the people in the city did this, from the most important to the least important.

⁶When the king of Nineveh heard this news, he got up from his throne, took off his robe, and covered himself with rough cloth and sat in ashes to show how upset he was.

⁷He sent this announcement through Nineveh:

By command of the king and his important men: No person or animal, herd or flock, will be allowed to taste anything. Do not let them eat food or drink water. ⁸But every person and animal should be covered with rough cloth, and people should cry loudly to God. Everyone must turn away from evil living and stop doing harm all the time. ⁹Who knows? Maybe God will change his mind. Maybe he will stop being angry, and then we will not die.

¹⁰When God saw what the people did, that they stopped doing evil, he changed his mind and did not do what he had warned. He did not punish them.

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