Jonah

¹ This message from the Lord came to Jonah the second time,

² “Arise, go to that great city, Nineveh, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.”

³ So Jonah started for Nineveh, as the Lord commanded. Now Nineveh was so large a city that it took three days’ journey to cross it.

⁴ Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, and he proclaimed, “Forty days more and Nineveh will be overthrown.”

⁵ And the people of Nineveh believed God; and they ordered a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them.

⁶ And when word came to the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his robe, dressed in sackcloth, and sat in ashes.

⁷ And he made this proclamation and published it in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: People, beast, herd, and flock must not taste anything; let them not eat nor drink water.

⁸ Let both people and animals put on sackcloth and let them cry earnestly to God; let them each turn from their evil ways and from the deeds of violence which they are doing.

⁹ Who knows? God may relent and avert his fierce anger, so that we may not die.”

¹⁰ When God saw that they turned from their evil course, he relented the evil which he said he would do to them, and did not do it.