A Second Chance
Our Father's word comes a second time and Jonah goes, walking a day into Nineveh to announce forty days until it is overturned. The whole city believes, the king leaves his throne for sackcloth and ashes, and seeing them turn, God does not destroy them.
3 1Then the word of our Father came to Jonah a second time:
2"Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim the message I give you."
3So Jonah got up and went to Nineveh, as our Father had said. Nineveh was a huge city—three days to cross. 4Jonah walked one day into the city and cried out, "Forty more days and Nineveh is 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.
5The people of Nineveh believed God. They called a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least.
6When the news reached Nineveh's king, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7He had this proclaimed in Nineveh, by decree of the king and his nobles: No person or animal, herd or flock, may taste anything; they must not graze or drink water. 8Let people and animals be covered with sackcloth, and everyone cry out to God with all their strength. Let each turn from his evil way and the violence in his hands. 9Who knows? God may turn and change his mind, turn from his fierce anger, so we're not destroyed.
10When God saw their deeds—that they turned from their evil way—God changed his mind about the disaster he had threatened to bring on them, and did not do it.
