1 The word of Yahweh came to Jonah a second time, saying, 2 “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I command you to give.” 3 So Jonah got up and went to Nineveh in obedience to the word of Yahweh. Now Nineveh was a very large city, one of three days' journey. 4 Jonah began to enter the city and after a day's journey he called out and said, “In forty days Nineveh will be overthrown.” 5 The people of Nineveh believed God and they proclaimed a fast. They all put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them down to the least of them. 6 Soon the news reached the king of Nineveh. He rose up from his throne, took off his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7 He sent out a proclamation that said, “In Nineveh, by the authority of the king and his nobles, let neither man nor animal, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not eat, nor drink water. 8 But let both man and animal be covered with sackcloth and let them cry out loudly to God. Let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. 9 Who knows? God may relent and change his mind and turn away from his fierce anger so that we do not perish.” 10 God saw what they did, that they turned from their evil ways. So then God changed his mind about the punishment that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.
Jonah · Unlocked Literal Bible
Jonah 3 Unlocked Literal Bible
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)