New Living Translation NLT
Common English Bible CEB
1 Then the LORD spoke to Jonah a second time:
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The LORD's word came to Jonah a second time:
2 “Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh, and deliver the message I have given you.”
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"Get up and go to Nineveh, that great city, and declare against it the proclamation that I am commanding you."
3 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.
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And Jonah got up and went to Nineveh, according to the LORD's word. (Now Nineveh was indeed an enormous city, a three days' walk across.)
4 On the day Jonah entered the city, he shouted to the crowds: “Forty days from now Nineveh will be destroyed!”
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Jonah started into the city, walking one day, and he cried out, "Just forty days more and Nineveh will be overthrown!"
5 The people of Nineveh believed God’s message, and from the greatest to the least, they declared a fast and put on burlap to show their sorrow.
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And the people of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast and put on mourning clothes, from the greatest of them to the least significant.
6 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 burlap and sat on a heap of ashes.
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When word of it reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, stripped himself of his robe, covered himself with mourning clothes, and sat in ashes.
7 Then the king and his nobles sent this decree throughout the city: “No one, not even the animals from your herds and flocks, may eat or drink anything at all.
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Then he announced, "In Nineveh, by decree of the king and his officials: Neither human nor animal, cattle nor flock, will taste anything! No grazing and no drinking water!
8 People and animals alike must wear garments of mourning, and everyone must pray earnestly to God. They must turn from their evil ways and stop all their violence.
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Let humans and animals alike put on mourning clothes, and let them call upon God forcefully! And let all persons stop their evil behavior and the violence that's under their control!"
9 Who can tell? Perhaps even yet God will change his mind and hold back his fierce anger from destroying us.”
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He thought, Who knows? God may see this and turn from his wrath, so that we might not perish.
10 When God saw what they had done and how they had put a stop to their evil ways, he changed his mind and did not carry out the destruction he had threatened.
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God saw what they were doing—that they had ceased their evil behavior. So God stopped planning to destroy them, and he didn't do it.
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Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2011 Common English Bible