Jonah 3:1-9 ▼

1 This message from the LORD came to Jonah a second time:

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

3 So Jonah got up and went to Nineveh to do what the LORD had ordered. Now Nineveh was a very large city, requiring a three-day journey to cross through it.

4 As Jonah started into the city on the first day's journey, he proclaimed the message, |40 days more and Nineveh will be overthrown!|

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

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

7 Then he had this proclamation published throughout Nineveh: |By decree of the king and his nobles: No man or animal, herd or flock, is to taste anything, graze, or drink water.

8 Instead, let both man and animal clothe themselves with sackcloth and cry out to God forcefully. Let every person turn from his evil ways and from his tendency to do violence.

9 Who knows but that God may relent, have compassion, and turn from his fierce anger, so that we are not exterminated?|