UNROLL
Morning at a great gateway of Nineveh: a vast mud-brick wall with a flat top, carved stone winged bulls flanking the gate, townspeople going in, and one traveler with a staff seen from behind among them.

Nineveh turns

Jonah 3

Is there someone you’ve decided is beyond God’s mercy?

10 verses≈ 3 min1 personBSB

Images are artistic interpretations.

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In this chapter

Where we are

  1. 1RunningJeroboam II’s Israel, about 770 BC: west to Tarshish
  2. 2From the deepA prayer from inside the fish
  3. 3Nineveh turnsAssyria’s great city repentsChapter 3
  4. 4God’s questionAn angry prophet and a withered plant

The Ninevites Repent

Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time:

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God

“Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message that I give you.”

This time Jonah got up and went to Nineveh, in accordance with the word of the LORD.

Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, requiring a three-day journey.

Jonah
Midday in a crowded street of Nineveh: townspeople with curled beards, a porter with a load and a woman with a jar turn to look at a bearded man in a brown cloak, seen from behind, one hand raised as he calls out.

On the first day of his journey, Jonah set out into the city and proclaimed, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned!”

Reflect

A second time

God sent Jonah again, with the same word and no scolding. Where has God given you a second chance? What would it look like to say yes this time? Write it down.

The king of Nineveh
Gray morning: a herald in a long fringed robe calls out from a palace step over a square of people sitting in sackcloth, cattle and sheep with sackcloth over their backs among them.

Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let no man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything at all. They must not eat or drink.

Furthermore, let both man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and have everyone call out earnestly to God. Let each one turn from his evil ways and from the violence in his hands.

0:22

Narrated by Bob Souer · BSB audio, public domain

The king of Nineveh

Who knows? God may turn and relent; He may turn from His fierce anger, so that we will not perish.”

When God saw their actions—that they had turned from their evil ways—He relented from the disaster He had threatened to bring upon them.

Jonah 3:10

Question

Quick question

Jonah walked into the great city and called out his warning.

How did the people of Nineveh respond to Jonah’s message?

You’ve experienced

Jonah 3

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A verse to carry with you

When God saw their actions—that they had turned from their evil ways—He relented from the disaster He had threatened to bring upon them.

Jonah 3:10

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