Ninevites

You have in Jonah the very example of mercy, which he furnished to the Ninevites entreating him;

"Therefore," you will say, "if you excuse the malice under the name of justice — because He had justly destined destruction upon the Ninevites — even so He is to be blamed, who exercised a repentance of a justice surely not to be repented of.

And this very patience of the Creator will be unto Marcion's judgment — that patience which awaits the sinner's repentance rather than his death, and prefers mercy to sacrifice, already turning aside the destruction destined for the Ninevites, and lavishing space of life upon Hezekiah's tears, and restoring the state of his kingdom to the tyrant of Babylon feigning repentance:

yours, if you will only to believe and to follow the brief proclamation, obeying which the Ninevites, by genuine repentance, exchanged the expected capture for the fair salvation.

and in his time prophesy Amos and Isaiah his son, and Hosea the son of Beeri, and Jonah the son of Amathi, of Geth Chober, who preached to the Ninevites, the one who came forth from the whale.

Thus when the Ninevites were threatened with utter destruction, on account of their grievous crimes, a mitigation of the sentence was allowed, in compassion to the many thousands, who were of an age incapable of making a distinction between right and wrong.

Through this sequel of mourning and through abstinence, even that sinful city Nineveh is delivered from the destruction foretold.

Did Jonah then for this reason think penitence not necessary for the heathen Ninevites, when he quibbled in the office of preaching?