World's shortest sermon.

Jonah 3

1 And that is where Jonah was when the Word of the Lord found him the second time and began to say to him,

2 "Get your things together, Jonah, and get going toward the great city Nineveh.  When you arrive there you will proclaim my message, preach unto her the sermon which I have been telling you.

3  So Jonah pulled himself together and began walking toward Nineveh following after the Word of the Lord.  Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city unto the gods.  It is questionable whether someone could walk from one end of it to the other in three days.

4  Now Jonah waited until he had come into the city about a days walk and then he cried out and said, “Nineveh has 40 days before it will be overthrown.”

5  And all the people of Nineveh trusted God and they declared a fast and put on sackcloth. All of them, from the greatest to the least of them, put on sackcloth.

6  When the word going around the city came to the king’s attention, he rose up from his throne and laid aside his royal robes. Then the king covered himself from head to toe in sackcloth and sat down in an ash pit to fast with his people.

7  When he had everyone that he needed with him at the ash pit, he spoke the following words to his nobles so that they would tell all the people, “People of Nineveh - Do not eat or drink any food or water, do not let your animals ear or drink and take your cattle and sheep out of the pastures.”

8  “Sackcloth is all that we will wear and the animals shall wear the same.  Make as much noise as you can and cry out to God. Every man is to turn away from evil and from the cruel things you do and the places you go.”

9  “Who knows whether God will pity us and look at us again so that harm will be turned away from us. Perhaps His burning anger will not consume us so that we all perish.”

10  So God saw all that they did and how they truly turned away from the path of destruction.  And God felt sorry for them because of the panic and distress that came from the proclamation He had made against them. He did not destroy them as He had declared He would.