Then, before Jonah could revel in his new encounter with God, shock waves exploded in his mind, his heart sank, and his strong will resistantly stiffened. The Lord told him what he was to do: “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me” (1:2). “Nineveh, Lord?” he must have replied. “Surely you don’t mean that?! The capital city of the Assyrians? The center of Israel’s worst Gentile enemy?” A contest of wills between the prophet and Yahweh