< Jonah 3 >
1 And there is a word of YHWH to Jonah a second time, saying,
上主的話再次傳給約納說:
2 “Rise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and proclaim to it the proclamation that I am speaking to you”;
「你起身往尼尼微大城去,向他們宣告我曉諭你的事。」
3 and Jonah rises, and he goes to Nineveh, according to the word of YHWH. And Nineveh has been a great city before God, a journey of three days.
約納便依從上主的話,起身去了尼尼微。尼尼微在天主前是一座大城,須要三天的行程。
4 And Jonah begins to go into the city—a journey of one day—and proclaims and says, “Yet forty days and Nineveh is overturned!”
約納開始進城,行了一天的路程,宣佈說:「還有四十天,尼尼微就要毀滅了。」
5 And the men of Nineveh believe in God, and proclaim a fast, and put on sackcloth, from their greatest even to their least,
尼尼微人便信仰了天主,立刻宣佈禁食,從大到小,都身披苦衣。
6 seeing the word comes to the king of Nineveh, and he rises from his throne, and removes his honorable robe from off him, and spreads out sackcloth, and sits on the ashes,
當這傳到尼尼微王那裏,他便起來,離開自己的寶座,脫去長服,披上苦衣,坐在灰土中;
7 and he cries and says in Nineveh by a decree of the king and his great ones, saying, “Man and beast, herd and flock—do not let them taste anything, do not let them feed, do not even let them drink water;
然後命令以君王的諭令和其大臣的名義,在尼尼微宣佈說:「人、牲畜、牛羊,都可不可吃什麼;不可牧放,也不可喝水。
8 and let man and beast cover themselves [with] sackcloth, and let them call to God mightily, and let them each turn back from his evil way, and from the violence that [is] in their hands.
人和牲畜都應身披苦衣,人要懇切呼求天主,更要轉離自己的邪路,放棄手中的暴行。
9 Who knows? He turns back, and God has relented, and has turned back from the heat of His anger, and we do not perish.”
誰知道天主也許會轉意憐憫,收回自己的烈怒,使我們不致滅亡。」
10 And God sees their works, that they have turned back from their evil way, and God relents of the evil that He spoke of doing to them, and He has not done [it].
天主看到他們所行的事,看到他們離開自己的邪路,遂憐憫他們,不將已宣佈的災禍,降在他們身上。