⁴ When the people heard these stern words, they went into mourning and stopped wearing their jewelry and fine clothes.

³⁹ When Moses reported the Lord’s words to all the Israelites, the people were filled with grief.

¹⁶ All the seaport rulers will step down from their thrones and take off their royal robes and beautiful clothing. They will sit on the ground trembling with horror at your destruction.

²³ Your heads will remain covered, and your sandals will not be taken off. You will not mourn or weep, but you will waste away because of your sins. You will groan among yourselves for all the evil you have done.

¹⁷ Groan silently, but let there be no wailing at her grave. Do not uncover your head or take off your sandals. Do not perform the usual rituals of mourning or accept any food brought to you by consoling friends.”

The People Rebel

14 Then the whole community began weeping aloud, and they cried all night.

⁵ “Say to all your people and your priests, ‘During these seventy years of exile, when you fasted and mourned in the summer and in early autumn,^[a] was it really for me that you were fasting?

³ They were to ask this question of the prophets and the priests at the Temple of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies: “Should we continue to mourn and fast each summer on the anniversary of the Temple’s destruction,^[a] as we have done for so many years?”

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.