3:1 | The Lord said to Jonah* a second time, |
3:2 | “Go immediately* to Nineveh, that large city,* and proclaim to* it the message that I tell you.” |
3:3 | So Jonah went immediately to Nineveh, as the Lord had said. (Now Nineveh was an enormous city* – it required three days to walk through it!)* |
3:4 | When Jonah began to enter the city one day’s walk, he announced, “At the end of forty days,* Nineveh will be overthrown!”* |
3:5 | The people* of Nineveh believed in God,* and they declared a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them.* |
3:6 | When the news* reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, took off his royal robe, put on sackcloth, and sat on ashes. |
3:7 | He issued a proclamation and said,* “In Nineveh, by the decree of the king and his nobles: No human or animal, cattle or sheep, is to taste anything; they must not eat and they must not drink water. |
3:8 | Every person and animal must put on sackcloth and must cry earnestly* to God, and everyone* must turn from their* evil way of living* and from the violence that they do.* |
3:9 | Who knows?* Perhaps God might be willing to change his mind and relent* and turn from his fierce anger* so that we might not die.”* |
3:10 | When God saw their actions – they turned* from their evil way of living!* – God relented concerning the judgment* he had threatened them with* and he did not destroy them.* |