1 And the word of Jehovah came unto Jonah the second time, saying, 2 Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I shall bid thee. 3 And Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of Jehovah. 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 And the men of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. 6 And the word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and laid his robe from him, and covered himself 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 anything: let them not feed, nor drink water; 8 and let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God; and let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. 9 Who knoweth but that God will turn and repent, and will 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 he would do unto them, and he did [it] not.
Jonah 3 Darby Translation
Audio: World English Bible (WEB), read by Winfred W. Henson · About the recordings
People & places in this chapter
From this site's family tree and Bible maps, only where those guides cite this chapter.
Places
Nineveh
Capital of the brutal Assyrian Empire. Jonah's reluctant mission brought it to repentance; Nahum later prophesied its fall, which came in 612 BC.
Cited in the guide: Jonah 3:3; Nahum 1:1; 2 Kings 19:36
Cross references (10)
Related passages for each verse, from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge as collected and ranked by readers at OpenBible.info.
- 1 Jonah 1:1
- 2 Jeremiah 1:17; Ezekiel 2:7; Jonah 3:3; Jonah 1:2; John 5:14
- 3 Matthew 21:28–29; Psalm 80:10; Genesis 22:3
- 4 Deuteronomy 18:22; Jeremiah 18:7–10; 2 Kings 20:1; Jonah 3:10; 2 Kings 20:6
- 5 Luke 11:32; Daniel 9:3; Matthew 12:41; Joel 2:12–17; 2 Chronicles 20:3
- 6 James 4:6–10; Esther 4:1–4; Job 2:8; Daniel 9:3; Luke 10:13
- 7 2 Chronicles 20:3; Joel 2:15–16; Joel 1:18; Jonah 3:5; Ezra 8:21
- 8 Isaiah 59:6; Isaiah 55:6–7; Jonah 1:6; Jonah 1:14; Ezekiel 18:21–24
- 9 2 Samuel 12:22; Joel 2:13–14; Psalm 106:45; Jonah 1:6; Luke 15:18–20
- 10 Jeremiah 18:8; 1 Kings 21:27–29; Exodus 32:14; Amos 7:6; Luke 15:20
Cross references: OpenBible.info (CC BY), drawn mainly from the public-domain Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. · Sources & licences
What the Fathers said
Passages from the Church Fathers that expound or quote this chapter, verbatim from the public-domain Schaff edition (19th-century English translations).
How these were chosen
“Commentary” is the opening of a homily or exposition on this chapter (John Chrysostom’s homilies, Augustine’s tractates, sermons and expositions of the Psalms). “Quotes” are sentences where the edition’s own footnotes identify a quotation of a verse here, kept only when the wording matches the verse. Only works whose authorship is not in doubt are used. Psalms follow the Hebrew/English numbering (Augustine numbers them as the Septuagint does: his Psalm 50 is Psalm 51 here).
… wrought in Jonah's case, as the Scripture says of them, "And they returned each from his evil way, and the unrighteousness which was in their hands, saying, Who knoweth if God will repent, and turn away His anger from us, and we shall not perish?" --so also, from the beginning, did God permit man to be swallowed up by the …
But some one may say, "How shall I know whether the prophet Jonah said to the Ninevites, Yet three days and Nineveh shall be overthrown,' or forty days?" For who does not see that the prophet could not say both, when he was sent to terrify the city by the threat of imminent ruin?
Read in context · Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 1, vol. 2 (1887)