Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried out, and said, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!"
Now the second reference that Jesus made to Nineveh was as He was talking to the scribes and the Pharisees and He said, "The men of Nineveh will rise in judgment with this generation and they will condemn it. For they repented at the preaching of Jonah and behold a greater than Jonah is here" ( Matthew 12:41 ). The men of Nineveh repented at the preaching of this angry prophet who only preached the judgment of God. Here Jesus, the Son of God, had come declaring to the people the love of God, encouraging people to experience God's love and to come to God's love, but yet, they did not repent. So the men of Nineveh in the day of judgment will be standing, and they will be pointing a finger at this generation, those who have not repented, those who have not sought God, and they will be condemning this generation for they repented at the preaching of Jonah. Repent they did, complete sackcloth, even to the king laying aside his robes and putting on this itchy sackcloth, putting it over their animals, everybody joining in this citywide repentance.