So Jonah went immediately to Nineveh, as the Lord had said. (Now Nineveh was an enormous city – it required three days to walk through it!)

“Go immediately to Nineveh, that large city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.”

“Go immediately to Nineveh, that large capital city, and announce judgment against its people because their wickedness has come to my attention.”

When Jonah began to enter the city one day’s walk, he announced, “At the end of forty days, Nineveh will be overthrown!”

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.

The people of Nineveh believed in God, and they declared a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them.

Should I not be even more concerned about Nineveh, this enormous city? There are more than one hundred twenty thousand people in it who do not know right from wrong, as well as many animals!”

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.