3 The word of Adonai came to Yonah a second time: ² “Set out for the great city of Ninveh, and proclaim to it the message I will give you.” ³ So Yonah set out and went to Ninveh, as Adonai had said. Now Ninveh was such a large city that it took three days just to cross it. ⁴ Yonah began his entry into the city and had finished only his first day of proclaiming, ‘In forty days Ninveh will be overthrown,’ ⁵ when the people of Ninveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least. ⁶ When the news reached the king of Ninveh, he got up from his throne, took off his robe, put on sackcloth and sat in ashes. ⁷ He then had this proclamation made throughout Ninveh: “By decree of the king and his nobles, no person or animal, herd or flock, is to put anything in his mouth; they are neither to eat nor drink water. ⁸ They must be covered with sackcloth, both people and animals; and they are to cry out to God with all their might — let each of them turn from his evil way and from the violence they practice. ⁹ Who knows? Maybe God will change his mind, relent and turn from his fierce anger; and then we won’t perish.”

¹⁰ When God saw by their deeds that they had turned from their evil way, he relented and did not bring on them the punishment he had threatened.