| NET Bible | International Standard Version |
| 1The LORD said to Jonah a second time, | 1This message from the LORD came to Jonah a second time: |
| 2"Go immediately to Nineveh, that large city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you." | 2"Get up and go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you." |
| 3So Jonah went immediately to Nineveh, as the LORD had said. (Now Nineveh was an enormous city--it required three days to walk through it!) | 3So Jonah got up and went to Nineveh to do what the LORD had ordered. Now Nineveh was a very large city, requiring a three-day journey to cross through it. |
| 4When Jonah began to enter the city one day's walk, he announced, "At the end of forty days, Nineveh will be overthrown!" | 4As Jonah started into the city on the first day's journey, he proclaimed the message, "40 days more and Nineveh will be overthrown!" |
| 5The people of Nineveh believed in God, and they declared a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them. | 5The people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least important. |
| 6When 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. | 6When the message reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, removed his royal garments, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat down in ashes. |
| 7He 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. | 7Then he had this proclamation published throughout Nineveh: "By decree of the king and his nobles: No man or animal, herd or flock, is to taste anything, graze, or drink water. |
| 8Every 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. | 8Instead, let both man and animal clothe themselves with sackcloth and cry out to God forcefully. Let every person turn from his evil ways and from his tendency to do violence. |
| 9Who knows? Perhaps God might be willing to change his mind and relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we might not die." | 9Who knows but that God may relent, have compassion, and turn from his fierce anger, so that we are not exterminated?" |
| 10When God saw their actions--they turned from their evil way of living!--God relented concerning the judgment he had threatened them with and he did not destroy them. | 10God took note of what they did—that they turned from their evil ways. Because God relented concerning the trouble about which he had warned them, he did not carry it out. |
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