Before You Teach
A prep snapshot before the full lesson flow.
Amos, Obadiah, and Jonah are three short prophets with one shared message: the Lord keeps sending warnings because He wants His people to turn back and live. Amos tells rich, religious Israel that worship means nothing while they cheat the poor. Obadiah condemns Edom for turning on its brother nation. Jonah runs from his call, gets a second chance, and then sulks when God gives Nineveh a second chance too. The manual centers on Amos 5:4: "Seek ye me, and ye shall live."
Around 760 BC, Amos, a herdsman from Tekoa in Judah, goes north to prosperous Israel under Jeroboam II. He condemns the nations around Israel first, then turns on Israel itself for selling "the poor for a pair of shoes" (Amos 2:6). The Lord sent hardships to turn them back, "yet have ye not returned unto me" (Amos 4). He invites them, "Seek ye me, and ye shall live" (Amos 5:4), and warns of a famine "of hearing the words of the Lord" (Amos 8:11). The priest Amaziah orders Amos to leave. The book ends with the promise that scattered Israel will be gathered (Amos 9).
Obadiah condemns Edom for looting Jerusalem and handing over refugees in 586 BC, and promises that "saviours shall come up on mount Zion" (Obadiah 1:21).
Jonah sails for Tarshish, about as far from Nineveh as he could get. A storm comes, the sailors throw him overboard, and a great fish swallows him. He prays, is put out on dry land, and is called "the second time" (Jonah 3:1). Nineveh repents and God spares the city. Jonah is furious. God grows a gourd to shade him, sends a worm to kill it, and the book ends with God's question about why Jonah cares more for a plant than for a city.
Jonah ran because he already knew what God is like. In Jonah 4:2 he admits he knew God was "gracious... and merciful, slow to anger." His problem was that the mercy went to Assyria, Israel's brutal enemy. Amos shows the same pattern from the other side: Israel wanted God's blessings while it took advantage of the poor. In both books, people who claim to be close to God are uncomfortable with how far His love reaches.
For teens, this comes up in group chats, in who sits where at lunch, and in the classmate everyone has decided can't change. If the room is ready, use Elder Ulisses Soares: "having prophets is a sign of God's love" ("Prophets Speak by the Power of the Holy Spirit," April 2018 general conference). Add 2 Nephi 26:33: "all are alike unto God."
Teens decide fast who is in and who is out, and reputations stick. Jonah shows them that God does not lock people into their worst week, and that He asks His disciples to want other people to change too.
Full Lesson Flow
Use the sections below as a menu. Swap cards and activities to keep the class interactive.
Pick one opener to start class.
Opener options
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Ask: "Picture a missionary who gives one sermon of eight words, and the entire city repents, from the king down to the cows. How does he feel?" Let them answer. Then tell them Jonah's response in Jonah 4:1: he was "displeased... exceedingly, and he was very angry." Ask: "Why would anyone be mad that their sermon worked?" Leave it open; the class will find the answer in the text.
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Ask: "Picture a missionary who gives one sermon of eight words, and the entire city repents, from the king down to the cows. How does he feel?" Let them answer. Then tell them Jonah's response in Jonah 4:1: he was "displeased... exceedingly, and he was very angry." Ask: "Why would anyone be mad that their sermon worked?" Leave it open; the class will find the answer in the text.
Write four people on the board: a kid who copied your homework once; a friend who spread a rumor about you; a stranger who was rude online; a bully who made middle school hard for a lot of people. Ask the class to rank them from "easiest to forgive" to "hardest." Count hands for the hardest. Then say: "This week God gives a second chance to a city everyone in Israel would have put in the bottom slot."
"Would you rather get a calling to speak in a ward where everyone loves you, or get sent to the one town that has been attacking your family for years?" Have them stand on opposite sides of the room. Ask one person from each side why. Then: "Jonah got option two, and he bought a ticket the other way."
Paths
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Give the setting first. Nineveh was the great city of Assyria, an enemy of Israel known for violence and cruelty. Jonah had already fled once, gone overboard, and been brought back. The word of the Lord came to him "the second time" (Jonah 3:1).
Read his whole message:
Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. (Jonah 3:4)
Ask: "What do you notice about this sermon?" (It is short, and it says nothing about mercy.) Then read what happened:
God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way. (Jonah 3:10)
The people believed God, and the king put on sackcloth and told everyone, animals included, to fast and turn from violence. In Assyria, animals were sometimes included in public mourning during a crisis, so the decree meant the whole city was in.
Now read Jonah 4:2, where Jonah explains why he ran: he knew God was "gracious... and merciful, slow to anger." Turn-and-talk: "Jonah knew exactly what God was like. Why did that make him run?" Help them see it: Jonah did not doubt God's mercy. He did not want Nineveh to have it.
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Give the setting first. Nineveh was the great city of Assyria, an enemy of Israel known for violence and cruelty. Jonah had already fled once, gone overboard, and been brought back. The word of the Lord came to him "the second time" (Jonah 3:1).
Read his whole message:
Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. (Jonah 3:4)
Ask: "What do you notice about this sermon?" (It is short, and it says nothing about mercy.) Then read what happened:
God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way. (Jonah 3:10)
The people believed God, and the king put on sackcloth and told everyone, animals included, to fast and turn from violence. In Assyria, animals were sometimes included in public mourning during a crisis, so the decree meant the whole city was in.
Now read Jonah 4:2, where Jonah explains why he ran: he knew God was "gracious... and merciful, slow to anger." Turn-and-talk: "Jonah knew exactly what God was like. Why did that make him run?" Help them see it: Jonah did not doubt God's mercy. He did not want Nineveh to have it.
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Setting: Israel was rich. Archaeologists found more than 500 carved ivory plaques in Samaria, the "houses of ivory" Amos condemned (Amos 3:15). The people kept their feasts and sacrifices while they sold "the poor for a pair of shoes" (Amos 2:6).
Read Amos 5:21, "I hate, I despise your feast days," and then verse 24:
let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream. (Amos 5:24)
Ask one question: "Israel and Jonah both had religion and a group of people they didn't care about. Who was it for each?" (For Israel it was the poor; for Jonah it was Nineveh.) Then put Amos 5:4 on the board: "Seek ye me, and ye shall live." Seeking the Lord includes caring about the people He cares about.
Amos argues from cause to effect: a lion roars because it caught prey, and a trap springs because something stepped in it (Amos 3:3–6). Then he reaches his point, "Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets" (Amos 3:7). Ask: "If a prophet speaks, what can you conclude?" Then read Amos 8:11: a famine "not... of bread... but of hearing the words of the Lord." Latter-day Saints recognize this as the Great Apostasy, which ended when the Lord called Joseph Smith. Ask: "How do you know when you're spiritually hungry?"
Talking points
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Jonah got a second call (Jonah 3:1), Nineveh got spared (Jonah 3:10), and even the pagan sailors turned to the Lord (Jonah 1:16). Because of Jesus Christ, no person or group is beyond the reach of repentance (2 Nephi 26:33). Jesus pointed to Jonah's three days in the fish as a sign of His own burial and Resurrection (Matthew 12:39–41), so Jonah's story points to the Savior who makes every second chance possible. Ask: "What makes this hard to live at your school?" Then: "Is there someone you've decided can't change?"
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Jonah got a second call (Jonah 3:1), Nineveh got spared (Jonah 3:10), and even the pagan sailors turned to the Lord (Jonah 1:16). Because of Jesus Christ, no person or group is beyond the reach of repentance (2 Nephi 26:33). Jesus pointed to Jonah's three days in the fish as a sign of His own burial and Resurrection (Matthew 12:39–41), so Jonah's story points to the Savior who makes every second chance possible. Ask: "What makes this hard to live at your school?" Then: "Is there someone you've decided can't change?"
Amos told Israel that the Lord rejected their worship because the same people were cheating the poor (Amos 5:21, 24). King Benjamin taught the same thing: "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God" (Mosiah 2:17). Ask: "Where's the gap between how people act at church and how they act in the group chat?"
Elder Ulisses Soares taught that "having prophets is a sign of God's love" (April 2018). Amaziah told Amos to go home (Amos 7:12–13), and Israel told the prophets to stop prophesying (Amos 2:12). Ask: "What's harder: hearing a prophet, or doing what he said?"
Activity options
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Say: "God ends the book of Jonah with a question and no answer. You're going to write the answer." Read Jonah 4:10–11 aloud, where God asks why Jonah pities a plant but not a city of more than 120,000 people. Put the class in pairs with this case: A kid at school was cruel to a lot of people last year. This year he's trying to be different, and people keep reminding him of who he was. Each pair writes two sentences: what Jonah would say about him, and what the Lord would say. Have three pairs read theirs. Debrief: "Which of those two sentences would come out of your mouth first, and what would it take to switch?"
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Say: "God ends the book of Jonah with a question and no answer. You're going to write the answer." Read Jonah 4:10–11 aloud, where God asks why Jonah pities a plant but not a city of more than 120,000 people. Put the class in pairs with this case: A kid at school was cruel to a lot of people last year. This year he's trying to be different, and people keep reminding him of who he was. Each pair writes two sentences: what Jonah would say about him, and what the Lord would say. Have three pairs read theirs. Debrief: "Which of those two sentences would come out of your mouth first, and what would it take to switch?"
Say: "Two volunteers. One of you is texting about a classmate who just got baptized, or came back to church, after a rough history. The other has to answer the way Amos 5:4 and Jonah 3:10 would." Let it run 90 seconds, then swap roles. Debrief: "What was hard to say out loud?"
Read each statement and have students move to Agree, Disagree, or Not Sure: "Some people are too far gone." "Going to church counts even if I'm unkind all week." "I'd rather God judge my enemy than forgive him." "Prophets still matter when I don't like the message." After each one, ask one person from each corner to explain. Debrief: "Which statement were you least honest about?"
Jonah knew God was merciful, and he still ran, because he wanted that mercy for himself and not for Nineveh. Amos told Israel that seeking the Lord means caring about the people He cares about, and that's how you live (Amos 5:4). The Savior made every second chance possible, including Jonah's, Nineveh's, and yours.
This week, think of one person you've quietly written off. Do one small thing that treats them like someone who can still change.