"Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh, and deliver the message of judgment I have given you."
This time Jonah obeyed the LORD's command and went to Nineveh, a city so large that it took three days to see it all.
On the day Jonah entered the city, he shouted to the crowds: "Forty days from now Nineveh will be destroyed!"
The people of Nineveh believed God's message, and from the greatest to the least, they decided to go without food and wear sackcloth to show their sorrow.
When the king of Nineveh heard what Jonah was saying, he stepped down from his throne and took off his royal robes. He dressed himself in sackcloth and sat on a heap of ashes.
Then the king and his nobles sent this decree throughout the city: "No one, not even the animals, may eat or drink anything at all.
Everyone is required to wear sackcloth and pray earnestly to God. Everyone must turn from their evil ways and stop all their violence.
Who can tell? Perhaps even yet God will have pity on us and hold back his fierce anger from destroying us."
When God saw that they had put a stop to their evil ways, he had mercy on them and didn't carry out the destruction he had threatened.