Some of us may have heard of the idiom, "once bitten twice shy," which basically means when something or someone has hurt you once, you tend to avoid that thing or person. In the case of Jonah, this time he complied with God's command, after having had the unpleasant experience of being in the fish's belly for three days and threes nights and later vomited out on shore. Jonah went to warn the Ninevites of the impending doom coming their way. The Ninevites took Jonah's warning seriously, and even the King of Nineveh issued a decree: "Men and beasts, herds and flocks, are to taste nothing; they must not eat, they must not drink water. All are to put on sackcloth and call on God with all their might; and let everyone renounce his evil behaviour and the wicked things he has done. Who knows if God will not change his mind and relent, if he will not renounce his burning wrath, so that we do not perish?"
The reading then tells us that "God saw their efforts to renounce their evil behaviour, and God relented: he did not inflict on them the disaster which he had threatened." In the same way, when we listen to God's warning and act upon it, we too may experience what the Ninevites experienced, and we would also avoid going through the unpleasant experience of Jonah. Are we willing to take seriously what God is telling us, before it is too late?
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