Seven Holy Founders of the Servite Order

1And the word of the Lord came to Jonas the second time, saying: 2Arise, and go to Ninive the great city: and preach in it the preaching that I bid thee. 3And Jonas arose, and went to Ninive, according to the word of the Lord: now Ninive was a great city of three days' journey. 4And Jonas began to enter into the city one day's journey: and he cried, and said: Yet forty days, and Ninive shall be destroyed. 5And the men of Ninive believed in God: and they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least. 6And the word came to the king of Ninive; and he rose up out of his throne, and cast away his robe from him, and was clothed with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7And he caused it to be proclaimed and published in Ninive from the mouth of the king and of his princes, saying: Let neither men nor beasts, oxen nor sheep, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water. 8And let men and beasts be covered with sackcloth, and cry to the Lord with all their strength, and let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the iniquity that is in their hands. 9Who can tell if God will turn, and forgive: and will turn away from his fierce anger, and we shall not perish? 10And God saw their works, that they were turned from their evil way: and God had mercy with regard to the evil which he had said that he would do to them, and he did it not.

3Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy great mercy. And according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my iniquity.

4Wash me yet more from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

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12Create a clean heart in me, O God: and renew a right spirit within my bowels.

13Cast me not away from thy face; and take not thy holy spirit from me.

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18For if thou hadst desired sacrifice, I would indeed have given it: with burnt offerings thou wilt not be delighted.

19A sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit: a contrite and humbled heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

29And the multitudes running together, he began to say: This generation is a wicked generation: it asketh a sign, and a sign shall not be given it, but the sign of Jonas the prophet. 30For as Jonas was a sign to the Ninivites; so shall the Son of man also be to this generation. 31The queen of the south shall rise in the judgment with the men of this generation, and shall condemn them: because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold more than Solomon here. 32The men of Ninive shall rise in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it; because they did penance at the preaching of Jonas; and behold more than Jonas here.