These prophecies serve as warnings, alerting us to traumatic events coming in the future that we can either prepare for or avoid by following God’s directives and depending on His providence. Noah escaped the doom of the prophesied Flood by building the ark (Gen. 6:13–22). Pharaoh in Egypt avoided the disaster that the prophesied seven-year famine could have brought on his nation by appointing Joseph to accumulate massive stores of food during the preceding years of plenty (Gen. 41). The citizens of the pagan city of Nineveh avoided its prophesied destruction by heeding Jonah’s warning and
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