3:1 Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time:
3:2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”
3:3 Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it.
3:4 Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.”
3:5 The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.
3:6 When Jonah’s warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust.
3:7 This is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink.
3:8 But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence.
3:9 Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.”
3:10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.