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Summary

Jonah 3:1–4 – A second call and a simple message

What happens: The word of the Lord comes to Jonah a second time. He goes to Nineveh and proclaims, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.”

What it means: God gives second chances to His servants. His word is powerful even when the message is brief, because He is the one at work.

Jonah 3:5–9 – Citywide repentance

What happens: The people of Nineveh believe God, fast, and put on sackcloth from greatest to least. The king humbles himself, issues a decree for fasting and turning from evil and violence, and hopes God will relent.

What it means: True repentance includes faith, humility, and concrete change. God’s compassion welcomes even notorious sinners who turn to Him.

Jonah 3:10 – God relents from disaster

What happens: God sees their deeds and how they turn from evil, and He relents from the announced disaster.

What it means: God is just and also merciful. He freely responds to repentance, showing His heart to forgive while upholding righteousness.

Application

  • Share God’s message plainly; trust Him to work in hearers.
  • Practice repentance with actions, not words only.
  • Believe that no person or place is beyond God’s mercy.

Bible

1And the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the second time, saying,

2Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.

3So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey.

4And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

5So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.

6For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.

7And 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 any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water:

8But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.

9Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?

10And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.

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