³⁶ So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew.^(A) He returned to Nineveh^(B) and stayed there.

² “Go to the great city of Nineveh^(A) and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”

⁷ Listen! When he hears a certain report,^(A) I will make him want to return to his own country, and there I will have him cut down with the sword.^(B)’”

⁴¹ The men of Nineveh^(A) will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah,^(B) and now something greater than Jonah is here.

1 A prophecy^(A) concerning Nineveh.^(B) The book of the vision^(C) of Nahum the Elkoshite.

² “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”

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. ⁴ Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming,^(A) “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” ⁵ The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.^(B)

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.^{(C) 7} This is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh:

¹⁰ When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented^(M) and did not bring on them the destruction^(N) he had threatened.^(O)