1 And the word of Yahweh came to Jonah a second [time], saying,
2 "Get up! Go to Nineveh, the great city, and proclaim to it the message that I [am] telling you."
3 So Jonah got up and went to Nineveh according to the word of Yahweh. Now Nineveh was {an extraordinarily great city}--a journey of three days [across].
4 And Jonah began to go into the city a journey of one day, and he cried out and said, "Forty more days and Nineveh will be demolished!"
5 And the people of Nineveh believed in God, and they proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth--from the greatest of them {to the least important}.
6 And the news reached the king of Nineveh, and he rose from his throne and removed his royal robe, put on sackcloth, and sat in the ashes.
7 And he had a proclamation made, and said, "In Nineveh, by a decree of the king and his nobles: "No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything! They must not eat, and they must not drink water!
8 And [the] human beings and [the] animals must be covered [with] sackcloth! And they must call forcefully to God, and each must turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.
9 Who knows? God may relent and change his mind and turn {from his blazing anger} {so that} we will not perish."