Jonah 1:2

²⁰The LORD said, “Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, ²¹I will go down now, and see whether their deeds are as bad as the reports which have come to me. If not, I will know.”

¹¹Out of that land he went into Assyria, and built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah,

¹A revelation about Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.

¹“Cry aloud! Don’t spare! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Declare to my people their disobedience, and to the house of Jacob their sins.

²“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I give you.”

¹³He will stretch out his hand against the north, destroy Assyria, and will make Nineveh a desolation, as dry as the wilderness. ¹⁴Herds will lie down in the middle of her, all kinds of animals. Both the pelican and the porcupine will lodge in its capitals. Their calls will echo through the windows. Desolation will be in the thresholds, for he has laid bare the cedar beams. ¹⁵This is the joyous city that lived carelessly, that said in her heart, “I am, and there is no one besides me.” How she has become a desolation, a place for animals to lie down in! Everyone who passes by her will hiss and shake their fists.

¹¹Shouldn’t I be concerned for Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred twenty thousand persons who can’t discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also many animals?”

⁵For you are not sent to a people of a strange speech and of a hard language, but to the house of Israel— ⁶not to many peoples of a strange speech and of a hard language, whose words you can’t understand. Surely, if I sent you to them, they would listen to you. ⁷But the house of Israel will not listen to you, for they will not listen to me; for all the house of Israel are obstinate^[+] and hard-hearted. ⁸Behold, I have made your face hard against their faces, and your forehead hard against their foreheads. ⁹I have made your forehead as a diamond, harder than flint. Don’t be afraid of them, neither be dismayed at their looks, though they are a rebellious house.”

⁷But the LORD said to me, “Don’t say, ‘I am a child;’ for you must go to whomever I send you, and you must say whatever I command you. ⁸Don’t be afraid because of them, for I am with you to rescue you,” says the LORD.

⁹Then the LORD stretched out his hand and touched my mouth. Then the LORD said to me, “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth. ¹⁰Behold, I have today set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to uproot and to tear down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”

⁵for her sins have reached to the sky, and God has remembered her iniquities.