The people of Nineveh believed God's message. So they decided that everyone should fast, and all the people, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth to show that they had repented.

Jehoshaphat was frightened and prayed to the LORD for guidance. Then he gave orders for a fast to be observed throughout the country.

There by the Ahava Canal I gave orders for us all to fast and humble ourselves before our God and to ask him to lead us on our journey and protect us and our children and all our possessions.

Blow the trumpet on Mount Zion; give orders for a fast and call an assembly!

Gather the people together; prepare them for a sacred meeting; bring the old people; gather the children and the babies too. Even newly married couples must leave their homes and come.

The cattle are bellowing in distress because there is no pasture for them; the flocks of sheep also suffer.

For creation was condemned to lose its purpose, not of its own will, but because God willed it to be so. Yet there was the hope

For we know that up to the present time all of creation groans with pain, like the pain of childbirth.