Jonah 3

₁The Lord talked to Jonah again and said: ₂‘You must go to the big city of Nineveh. You must tell those people what I said to you.’

₃Jonah did what the Lord said and he went to Nineveh. Nineveh was a very big city. If a person walked from one side of the city to the other side, he walked for 3 days. ₄Jonah walked into the city for one day, and he told the people: ‘After 40 days God will punish all the people of Nineveh and He will destroy the city.’

₅The people of Nineveh believed the words and the message that God gave to Jonah. They stopped doing things that are wrong and they fasted. They took off their clothes and put on sack-cloth. This was to show that they felt sorry because they had sinned so much. All the people in the city, even the important people, felt sorry because they had done wrong. ₆The king of Nineveh heard what Jonah said. He got up from his throne, and he took off his beautiful royal clothes. He put on sack-cloth and he sat on the ash-heap. ₇Then the king and his important people made a law and he told all the people of Nineveh: ‘No person may eat food or drink anything. All the people and their animals must fast. ₈All the people must put on sack-cloth. Their animals must also have on sack-cloth. All the people must pray to God and they must stop all the bad things and sins that they are doing. ₉Maybe God will change his plan and feel sorry for us. Maybe He will stop being angry with us and not punish us, so we will not die.’

₁₀God saw that the people of Nineveh had stopped doing bad things and then God felt sorry for them and He did not punish them as He had planned.