3:1 The Lord’s message came to Jonah a second time, 2 “Go immediately to Nineveh, that large city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” 3 So Jonah went immediately to Nineveh, in keeping with the Lord’s message. Now Nineveh was an enormous city—it required three days to walk through it! 4 Jonah began to enter the city by going one day’s walk, announcing, “At the end of 40 days, Nineveh will be overthrown!”

5 The people of Nineveh believed in God, and they declared a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them. 6 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, took off his royal robe, put on sackcloth, and sat on ashes. 7 He issued a proclamation and said, “In Nineveh, by the decree of the king and his nobles: No human or animal, cattle or sheep, is to taste anything; they must not eat and they must not drink water. 8 Every person and animal must put on sackcloth and must cry earnestly to God, and everyone must turn from their evil way of living and from the violence that they do. 9 Who knows? Perhaps God might be willing to change his mind and relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we might not die.” 10 When God saw their actions—that they turned from their evil way of living—God relented concerning the judgment he had threatened them with and did not destroy them.

4:1 This displeased Jonah terribly and he became very angry. 2 He prayed to the Lord and said, “Oh, Lord, this is just what I thought would happen when I was in my own country. This is what I tried to prevent by attempting to escape to Tarshish, because I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in mercy, and one who relents concerning threatened judgment. 3 So now, Lord, kill me instead, because I would rather die than live!” 4 The Lord said, “Are you really so very angry?”

5 Jonah left the city and sat down east of it. He made a shelter for himself there and sat down under it in the shade to see what would happen to the city. 6 The Lord God appointed a little plant and caused it to grow up over Jonah to be a shade over his head to rescue him from his misery. Now Jonah was very delighted about the little plant.

7 So God sent a worm at dawn the next day, and it attacked the little plant so that it dried up. 8 When the sun began to shine, God sent a hot east wind. So the sun beat down on Jonah’s head, and he grew faint. So he despaired of life and said, “I would rather die than live!”

9 God said to Jonah, “Are you really so very angry about the little plant?” And he said, “I am as angry as I could possibly be!” 10 The Lord said, “You were upset about this little plant, something for which you did not work, nor did you do anything to make it grow. It grew up overnight and died the next day. 11 Should I not be more concerned about Nineveh, this enormous city? There are more than 120,000 people in it who do not know right from wrong, as well as many animals.”

The Scriptures quoted are from the NET Bible® copyright © 1996, 2019, used with permission from Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. All rights reserved.