Old Testament
Jonah 3
Overview
The word of the LORD comes to Jonah a second time, and this time he obeys, walking into the vast city of Nineveh with a single blunt sermon: "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." Astonishingly, the entire city believes God — from the greatest to the least they proclaim a fast and put on sackcloth, and even the king rises from his throne, sits in ashes, and orders all, man and beast, to turn from their evil and violence. When God sees their repentance, He relents from the disaster He had threatened and spares the city. This chapter delivers the book's great surprise: a pagan metropolis turns to God at the briefest of warnings.
1And the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the second time, saying,
2Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.
3So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey.
4And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
5So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.
6For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
7And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water:
8But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.
9Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?
10And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.