Jonah 3

3 ¹ Then the word of our Father came to Jonah a second time:

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

³ So Jonah got up and went to Nineveh, as our Father had told him. Now Nineveh was an enormous city — three days to walk across. ⁴ Jonah went a day's journey into the city and called out, "Forty more days, and Nineveh will be overturned!" ^a a v4 "Overturned" carries a deliberate double edge — it can mean destroyed or turned around, an irony the rest of the chapter fulfills.

⁵ And the people of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast and put on mourning clothes, from the greatest of them to the least.

⁶ When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his robe, covered himself with mourning clothes, and sat in ashes. ⁷ Then he had it proclaimed and published throughout Nineveh: "By the decree of the king and his nobles: No person or animal, no herd or flock, may taste anything; they must not graze or drink water. ⁸ Let both people and animals be covered with mourning clothes, and let everyone call out to God with all their strength. Let each turn from his evil way and from the violence his hands have done. ⁹ Who knows? God may turn and relent; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish."

¹⁰ When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster he had said he would bring upon them, and he did not do it.