The Hebrew Prophets

When word reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, took off his royal robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.

Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let no man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything at all. They must not eat or drink.

Furthermore, let both man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and have everyone call out earnestly to God. Let each one turn from his evil ways and from the violence in his hands.

Who knows? God may turn and relent; He may turn from His fierce anger, so that we will not perish.”

When God saw their actions—that they had turned from their evil ways—He relented from the disaster He had threatened to bring upon them.

Jonah, however, was greatly displeased, and he became angry.

So he prayed to the LORD, saying, “O LORD, is this not what I said while I was still in my own country? This is why I was so quick to flee toward Tarshish. I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion—One who relents from sending disaster.

And now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

But the LORD replied, “Have you any right to be angry?”

Then Jonah left the city and sat down east of it, where he made himself a shelter and sat in its shade to see what would happen to the city.

So the LORD God appointed a vine, and it grew up to provide shade over Jonah’s head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was greatly pleased with the plant.

When dawn came the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant so that it withered.

As the sun was rising, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint and wished to die, saying, “It is better for me to die than to live.”

Then God asked Jonah, “Have you any right to be angry about the plant?” “I do,” he replied. “I am angry enough to die!”

But the LORD said, “You cared about the plant, which you neither tended nor made grow. It sprang up in a night and perished in a night.

So should I not care about the great city of Nineveh, which has more than 120,000 people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well?”

This is the word of the LORD that came to Micah the Moreshite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah—what he saw regarding Samaria and Jerusalem:

Hear, O peoples, all of you; listen, O earth, and everyone in it! May the Lord GOD bear witness against you, the Lord from His holy temple.

For behold, the LORD comes forth from His dwelling place; He will come down and tread on the high places of the earth.

The mountains will melt beneath Him, and the valleys will split apart, like wax before the fire, like water rushing down a slope.

All this is for the transgression of Jacob and the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what is the high place of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem?

Therefore I will make Samaria a heap of rubble in the open field, a planting area for a vineyard. I will pour her stones into the valley and expose her foundations.

All her carved images will be smashed to pieces; all her wages will be burned in the fire, and I will destroy all her idols. Since she collected the wages of a prostitute, they will be used again on a prostitute.

Because of this I will lament and wail; I will walk barefoot and naked. I will howl like a jackal and mourn like an ostrich.

For her wound is incurable; it has reached even Judah; it has approached the gate of my people, as far as Jerusalem itself.