Nineveh Turns from Evil

1 And this was the word of prophecy from the LORD to Jonah a second time, saying, 2 “Get up, go to Nineveh, the great city, and prophesy against it the prophecy that I command you.”

3 And Jonah got up and went to Nineveh according to the word of the LORD, and Nineveh was a great city before the LORD with a three-day walk across it. 4 And Jonah began to enter the city, a day’s walk in, and he announced and said, “At the end of forty days Nineveh will be overturned!”

5 And the people of Nineveh believed the Word of the LORD, and they decreed a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the smallest.

6 And the news reached the king of Nineveh, and he got up from his royal throne and took off his valuable robes and covered himself in sackcloth and sat in ashes. 7 And he called out and said in Nineveh, “By decree of the king and his officials, people and animals, cattle and sheep, must not taste anything, graze, or drink water.

8 “People and animals must be covered in sackcloth and pray earnestly before the LORD, and each person must turn from his wicked way and from the violence in their hands.

9 “Whoever knows they are guilty of sins must turn away from them.⁠a Then the LORD will have mercy on them and turn away from His fierce anger, so that we will not die.”

10 And their acts⁠b were revealed before God, that they had turned from their evil ways, and God turned away the disaster He had said He would bring on them and did not do it.