1 And there is a word of YHWH to Jonah a second time, saying, 2 “Rise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and proclaim to it the proclamation that I am speaking to you”; 3 and Jonah rises, and he goes to Nineveh, according to the word of YHWH. And Nineveh has been a great city before God, a journey of three days. 4 And Jonah begins to go into the city—a journey of one day—and proclaims and says, “Yet forty days and Nineveh is overturned!” 5 And the men of Nineveh believe in God, and proclaim a fast, and put on sackcloth, from their greatest even to their least, 6 seeing the word comes to the king of Nineveh, and he rises from his throne, and removes his honorable robe from off him, and spreads out sackcloth, and sits on the ashes, 7 and he cries and says in Nineveh by a decree of the king and his great ones, saying, “Man and beast, herd and flock—do not let them taste anything, do not let them feed, do not even let them drink water; 8 and let man and beast cover themselves [with] sackcloth, and let them call to God mightily, and let them each turn back from his evil way, and from the violence that [is] in their hands. 9 Who knows? He turns back, and God has relented, and has turned back from the heat of His anger, and we do not perish.” 10 And God sees their works, that they have turned back from their evil way, and God relents of the evil that He spoke of doing to them, and He has not done [it].
Jonah · Literal Standard Version
Jonah 3 Literal Standard Version
Audio: World English Bible (WEB), read by Winfred W. Henson · About the recordings
People & places in this chapter
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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)