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Repentance of Nineveh

St Ephrem the Syrian, tr. Burgess, 1853

Proœmium

Behold, Jonah preached in Nineveh,
A Jew among the wicked.
That mighty one ascended to the city,
And disturbed it with words of terror.
The heathen city was made sorrowful
By means of the Hebrew preacher,
And became tumultuous like the ocean
Through Jonah, who came up from the sea.
Yea, tempests beat upon it
Like waves in the midst of the deep.
Jonah went down to the sea and troubled it;
He ascended to the dry land and terrified it:
The sea raged when he fled away;
When he preached the dry land was agitated.
By prayer the sea was quieted,
The dry land also by repentance.
He offered prayer in the great fish,
And the Ninevites in the mighty city.
Prayer set Jonah at liberty,
And supplication the Ninevites.

Jonah fled from God,
And the Ninevites from holiness.
Justice placed them in fetters,
Yea, both of them, like criminals.
They offered repentance to her,
And were both delivered.
She preserved Jonah in the sea,
And the Ninevites in the midst of the dry land.
From his own case Jonah learned
That it was proper the penitent should live.
Grace gave to him, in himself,
An example on behalf of sinners;
That as he was drawn out of the sea
He should draw out the sinking city.
Thus Nineveh, that stagnant lake, was moved
By Jonah who sprang from the deep.