False religions misrepresent Jehovah/Yahweh in saying everything is part of God's plan as if God planned the suffering and wickedness on Earth today. As I posted above, things are not going the way Jehovah wanted. This is also true in the opposite sense. While in Genesis chapters 6-9 Jehovah brings destruction on mankind for their evil, the opposite example of Jehovah changing his mind (feeling regrets) is in the book of Jonah. Jehovah told Jonah:
Jonah 3:1-4
Then the word of Jehovah came to Joʹnah a second time, saying:
+ 2 “Get up, go to Ninʹe·veh
+ the great city, and proclaim to her the message that I tell you.
3 So Joʹnah got up and went to Ninʹe·veh
+ in obedience to the word of Jehovah.
+ Now Ninʹe·veh was a very large city
*—a walking distance of three days.
4 Then Joʹnah entered the city, and walking a day’s journey, he was proclaiming: “In just 40 days more, Ninʹe·veh will be overthrown.
But Jehovah changed his mind and did not destroy Nineveh in 40 days. Some may have claimed Jonah was a false prophet - but this is actually an example of Jehovah's love and mercy:
Jonah 3:10
And the [true] God got to see their works,
+ that they had turned back from their bad way;
+ and so the [true] God felt regret
+ over the calamity that he had spoken of causing to them; and he did not cause [it].
+
Instead of Jonah also feeling compassion for these people, he became enraged over Jehovah changing his mind about destroying them:
Jonah 4:1-4
To Joʹnah, though, it was highly displeasing,
+ and he got to be hot with anger.
2 Hence he prayed to Jehovah
* and said: “Ah, now, O Jehovah, was not this an affair of mine,
* while I happened to be on my own ground? That is why I went ahead and ran away to Tarʹshish;
+ for I knew that you are a God
* gracious and merciful,
+ slow to anger and abundant in loving-kindness,
*+ and feeling regret over the calamity.
+ 3 And now, O Jehovah, take away, please, my soul
*+ from me, for my dying is better than my being alive.”
*+
4 In turn Jehovah said: “Have you rightly become hot with anger?”
+
Here Jonah is referring to Exodus 34:6,7 and Jeremiah 18:7-10 -
Jeremiah 18:7,8
Whenever I may speak about uprooting and pulling down and destroying a nation or a kingdom,
+ 8 and that nation abandons its wickedness that I spoke against, I will also change my mind concerning
* the calamity that I intended to bring against it.
+
NW footnote on "change my mind" gives an alternate translation of this Hebrew phrase: "feel regret over." Some other translations of Jeremiah 18:8 -
New International Version
and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned.
Contemporary English Version
and that nation turns from its evil, I will change my mind.
GOD'S WORD® Translation
But suppose the nation that I threatened turns away from doing wrong. Then I will change my plans about the disaster I planned to do to it.
NET Bible
But if that nation I threatened stops doing wrong, I will cancel the destruction I intended to do to it.
AMP
if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent
and reverse My decision concerning the devastation that I intended to do.
The reason why Jehovah changed his mind/felt regrets over the destruction he had Jonah foretell was that he felt sorry for them as the conclusion of the book of Jonah reveals:
Jonah 4:9-11
God asked Joʹnah: “Is it right for you to be so angry over the bottle-gourd plant?”
+
At that he said: “I have a right to be angry, so angry that I want to die.”
10 But Jehovah said: “You felt sorry for the bottle-gourd plant, which you did not work for, nor did you make it grow; it grew in one night and perished in one night.
11 Should I not also feel sorry for Ninʹe·veh the great city,
+ in which there are more than 120,000 men who do not even know right from wrong,
* as well as their many animals?”
+
Is this what you all were taught about the God of the Bible?
