³⁰ For as ^(A)Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so also the Son of Man will be to this generation.

^40 (A)For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. ^41 (B)The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and ^(C)condemn it, ^(D)because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here. ^42 (E)The queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and indeed a greater than Solomon is here.

Jonah’s Prayer and Deliverance

¹⁷ Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah. And ^(A)Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

⁴⁶ Then He said to them, ^(A)“Thus it is written, ^[a]and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, ⁴⁷ and that repentance and ^(B)remission of sins should be preached in His name ^(C)to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.

² “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I tell you.” ³ So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, ^[a]a three-day journey in extent. ⁴ And Jonah began to enter the city on the first day’s walk. Then ^(A)he cried out and said, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”

The People of Nineveh Believe

⁵ So the ^(B)people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them. ⁶ Then word came to the king of Nineveh; and he arose from his throne and laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth ^(C)and sat in ashes. ^7 (D)And he caused it to be proclaimed and published throughout Nineveh by the decree of the king and his ^[b]nobles, saying,

^10 (H)Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it.