阅读经文 

在约拿的年代（参看3月21日灵修）大约150年之后，那鸿先知预言尼尼微城将会沦陷。这个城市是当时庞大的亚述帝国的首都。拥有连接地中海和印度洋海域的重要河流系统，尼尼微获得赚取大量财富的途径。透过贸易和商业，亚述人从帝国的每一个区域收集金、银和铜。

可是，这些亚述人也剥削被他们统治的人。圣经告诉我们，亚述如何抢掠以色列的十个支派和掳走他们作奴隶，又使余下的两个支派犹大和便雅悯成为它的殖民地。神的子民受到的伤害一直都没有得到解脱。

尽管约拿以前曾经向尼尼微传讲神的恩典，而百姓也已经悔改了，可是当亚述人在扩展他们帝国的版图时，他们便渐渐愈发变得傲慢和败坏了。那鸿宣讲尼尼微城将会沦陷，亚述最终自食其果。一场内战使尼尼微被它从前的臣民掳掠了。

神藉着那鸿告诉祂的子民，他们需要信靠祂，而不要倚赖世人的做法。战争的风暴使当日最强大的帝国降卑，而有罪的人是不会逃脱惩罚的。唯有神“本为善，在患难的日子为人的保障。”（参鸿 1:7）

About 150 years after the time of Jonah (see March 21), Nahum prophesied about the fall of Nineveh. This city was the capital of what was now the vast Assyrian Empire.

With the great river system that connects the Mediterranean region to the Indian Ocean, Nineveh had access to enormous wealth. In trade and business, the Assyrians accumulated gold, silver, and copper from all over their empire.

But the Assyrians also exploited the people they ruled. The Bible tells of how Assyria pillaged ten of the tribes of Israel and took them away as slaves, leaving the two tribes of Judah and Simeon as its vassals. This injury to God’s people was never undone.

Though Jonah had preached God’s grace to Nineveh and the people had repented back then, the Assyrians had grown proud and corrupt as they expanded their empire. Nahum preached that Nineveh would fall, and in the end Assyria reaped what it had sown. A bitter civil war saw Nineveh sacked by its former subjects.

Through Nahum, God told his people that they needed to trust in him rather than the ways of the world. The storms of war brought low the greatest empire at that time, and the guilty did not go unpunished. God alone “is good, a refuge in times of trouble.”