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Jonah Preaches to Nineveh

Illustration of Jonah Preaches to Nineveh

When the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time, he went to Nineveh, an exceeding great city of three days' journey. A day's journey in, he cried, 'Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.' The people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least. The king himself left his throne, sat in ashes, and decreed that everyone should cry mightily to God and turn from violence. When God saw that they turned from their evil way, He relented of the judgment He had announced.

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Key Passages

Yet Forty Days

Jonah 3:1-10

A short and reluctant sermon brings a whole city to repentance, and God shows mercy.

A1nd the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the second time, saying,

2 Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. 3 So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey. 4 And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. 5 So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. 6 For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7 And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water: 8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. 9 Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? 10 And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.

Did You Know?

1

In Hebrew Jonah's message is only five words; in English, 'Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.'

2

Even the animals were covered with sackcloth by the king's decree.

3

Jesus said the men of Nineveh will rise in judgment against his generation, because they repented at Jonah's preaching (Matthew 12:41).

4

Jonah was angry at God's mercy and complained about it in the next chapter.