When they actually listen (Jonah 3:1-5, 10)
There’s something that’s even stranger than being a prophet.
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To be a prophet is a heavy, strange, miraculous calling. To be a prophet who is listened to is something stranger still. The typical prophet—if we may speak of such a thing—is a witness against futility. They are ignored, mocked, beaten, even killed. Isaiah is paradoxically commissioned to conceal the truth in the act of proclaiming it.