3:1 The word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time:
3:2 "Set out for the great city of Nineveh, and announce to it the message that I will tell you."
3:3 So Jonah made ready and went to Nineveh, according to the LORD’s bidding. Now Nineveh was an enormously large city; it took three days to go through it.
3:4 Jonah began his journey through the city, and had gone but a single day’s walk announcing, "Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed,"
3:5 when the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast and all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth.
3:6 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in the ashes.
3:7 Then he had this proclaimed throughout Nineveh, by decree of the king and his nobles: "Neither man nor beast, neither cattle nor sheep, shall taste anything; they shall not eat, nor shall they drink water.
3:8 Man and beast shall be covered with sackcloth and call loudly to God; every man shall turn from his evil way and from the violence he has in hand.
3:9 Who knows, God may relent and forgive, and withhold his blazing wrath, so that we shall not perish."
3:10 When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way, he repented of the evil that he had threatened to do to them; he did not carry it out.