Spoken:

“Then said Jehovah, You have had pity on the gourd,

for the which you have not labored, neither made it grow;

which came up in a night, and perished in a night:

And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city,

wherein are more than six score thousand persons

that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand;

and also much cattle?” (Jonah 4:10–11).

I

“The Creator’s mercy” is not an empty phrase,

nor is it a hollow promise;

it has concrete principles, methods and objectives.

God is true and real, and He uses no falsehoods or disguises,

and in this same manner His mercy is endlessly bestowed upon humanity

in every time and age, in every time and age.

However, to this very day, the Creator’s exchange with Jonah

is His sole, exclusive verbal statement of why He shows mercy to humanity,

how He shows mercy to humanity,

how tolerant He is of humanity and His true feelings for humanity.

II

Jehovah God’s succinct words during this conversation

express His thoughts toward humanity as an integral whole;

they are a true expression of His heart’s attitude

toward humanity, and they are also concrete proof

of His bestowal of abundant mercy upon humanity.

His mercy is not only bestowed upon humanity’s elder generations,

but is also granted to the younger members of humanity,

just as it has always been, from one generation to the next,

just as it has always been, from one generation to the next.

God’s wrath frequently comes down upon certain corners

and certain eras of humanity, but God’s mercy has never ceased.

With His mercy, He guides and leads, supplies and nourishes

one generation of created human beings after the next,

because His true feelings toward humanity will never change.

from The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God Himself, the Unique II