Jonah 2-3
New King James Version
Jonah’s Prayer and God’s Answer
2 Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the fish’s belly. 2 And he said:
“Out of the belly of Sheol I cried,
And You heard my voice.
3 (C)For You cast me into the deep,
Into the heart of the seas,
And the floods surrounded me;
(D)All Your billows and Your waves passed over me.
4 (E)Then I said, ‘I have been cast out of Your sight;
Yet I will look again (F)toward Your holy temple.’
5 The (G)waters surrounded me, even to my soul;
The deep closed around me;
Weeds were wrapped around my head.
6 I went down to the [a]moorings of the mountains;
The earth with its bars closed behind me forever;
Yet You have brought up my (H)life from the pit,
O Lord, my God.
7 “When my soul fainted within me,
I remembered the Lord;
(I)And my prayer went up to You,
Into Your holy temple.
8 “Those who regard (J)worthless idols
Forsake their own [b]Mercy.
9 But I will (K)sacrifice to You
With the voice of thanksgiving;
I will pay what I have (L)vowed.
(M)Salvation is of the (N)Lord.”
10 So the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.
Jonah Preaches at Nineveh
3 Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I tell you.” 3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, [c]a three-day journey in extent. 4 And Jonah began to enter the city on the first day’s walk. Then (O)he cried out and said, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”
The People of Nineveh Believe
5 So the (P)people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them. 6 Then word came to the king of Nineveh; and he arose from his throne and laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth (Q)and sat in ashes. 7 (R)And he caused it to be proclaimed and published throughout Nineveh by the decree of the king and his [d]nobles, saying,
Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; do not let them eat, or drink water. 8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily to God; yes, (S)let every one turn from his evil way and from (T)the violence that is in his hands. 9 (U)Who can tell if God will turn and relent, and turn away from His fierce anger, so that we may not perish?
10 (V)Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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