Jonah 3:5

The Nineveh people listened to Jonah, and they believed God’s message. They knew that God was angry with them for the bad things they did. So all the Nineveh people stopped eating food, to show God that they were sorry for the bad things they did. And they all put on clothes made out of a rough cloth, called sack-cloth. Everybody did that, the important people and the poor people, they all did that to show God that they were sorry for the bad things they did.

Plain English Version

In The King James Version

So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.

In Context

4Jonah started to go into the city. He walked for one day, and he called out, “In 40 days from now, God will finish up Nineveh.”

6The big boss of Nineveh heard about God’s message, and he got up from his special seat, and he took off his special coat, and he put on those rough clothes, and he sat down on ashes. He did those things to show God that he was sorry.

Read all of Jonah 3

Matthew Henry on Jonah 3:2-5

Jonah's Mission Renewed; The Prophet's Mission to Nineveh. ( b. c. 840.) 1 And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying, 2 Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. 3 So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord . Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey. 4 And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. We have here… Read the whole commentary →

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