Thematic Bible: Punishment for


Thematic Bible



But when [King Uzziah] was strong, he became proud to his destruction; and he trespassed against the Lord his God, for he went into the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense. And Azariah the priest went in after him and with him eighty priests of the Lord, men of courage. They opposed King Uzziah and said to him, It is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord, but for the priests, the sons of Aaron, who are set apart to burn incense. Withdraw from the sanctuary; you have trespassed, and that will not be to your credit and honor before the Lord God. read more.
Then Uzziah was enraged, and he had a censer in his hand to burn incense. And while he was enraged with the priests, leprosy broke out on his forehead before the priests in the house of the Lord, beside the incense altar.


And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, and put incense on it, and offered strange and unholy fire before the Lord, as He had not commanded them. And there came forth fire from before the Lord and killed them, and they died before the Lord.



What shall be given to you? Or what more shall be done to you, you deceitful tongue? -- " Sharp arrows of a [mighty] warrior, with [glowing] coals of the broom tree!


The blood avenger shall himself put the murderer to death; he shall put him to death when he meets him.

or if, in enmity, he struck the victim down with his hand, and he died, the one that struck the victim shall certainly be put to death; he is a murderer. The blood avenger shall put the murderer to death when he meets him.


You shall not accept a ransom for him who has escaped to his city of refuge, so that he may return to live in his [own] land before the death of the high priest.


And surely for your lifeblood I will require an accounting; from every beast I will require it; and from man, from every man [who spills another's lifeblood] I will require a reckoning. Whoever sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God He made man.


And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s [shed] blood from your hand.




He has also prepared [other] deadly weapons for Himself;
He makes His arrows fiery shafts [aimed at the unrepentant].


The people of the land have practiced oppression and extortion and have committed robbery; they have wronged the poor and needy and they have oppressed the stranger without justice.


Therefore I have poured out My indignation on them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath; I have repaid their way [by bringing it] upon their own heads,” says the Lord God.



“For you have taken pledges of your brothers without cause,
And stripped men naked.


“For he has oppressed and neglected the poor;
He has violently taken away houses which he did not build.


“Therefore snares surround you,
And sudden dread terrifies and overwhelms you;


and charges interest and takes [a percentage of] increase on what he has loaned; will he then live? He will not live! He has done all these disgusting things, he shall surely be put to death; his blood will be on his own head.

The Lord stands up to contend, and stands to judge the peoples and His people. The Lord enters into judgment with the elders of His people and their princes: For [by your exactions and oppressions you have robbed the people and ruined the country] you have devoured the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses. What do you mean by crushing My people and grinding the faces of the poor? says the Lord God of hosts.



“Therefore snares surround you,
And sudden dread terrifies and overwhelms you;


“You have not given water to the weary to drink,
And you have withheld bread from the hungry.


But the person who does [anything wrong] willfully and defiantly, whether he is native-born or a stranger, that one is blaspheming the Lord, and that person shall be cut off from among his people [excluding him from the atonement made for them].

To the degree that she glorified herself and reveled in her wantonness [living deliciously and luxuriously], to that measure impose on her torment and anguish and tears and mourning. Since in her heart she boasts, I am not a widow; as a queen [on a throne] I sit, and I shall never see suffering or experience sorrow -- " So shall her plagues (afflictions, calamities) come thick upon her in a single day, pestilence and anguish and sorrow and famine; and she shall be utterly consumed (burned up with fire), for mighty is the Lord God Who judges her.


Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts in regard to the prophets,

‘Behold, I am going to feed them [the bitterness of] wormwood
And make them drink the poisonous water [of gall],
For from the [counterfeit] prophets of Jerusalem
Profaneness and ungodliness have spread into all the land.’”

Therefore, thus says the Lord concerning the [false] prophets who are prophesying in My Name, although I did not send them—yet they keep saying, ‘Sword and famine shall not be in this land’: by sword and famine those prophets shall meet their end and be consumed.

But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name which I have not commanded him to speak, or which he speaks in the name of other gods—that prophet shall die.’


I [personally solemnly] warn everyone who listens to the statements of the prophecy [the predictions and the consolations and admonitions pertaining to them] in this book: If anyone shall add anything to them, God will add and lay upon him the plagues (the afflictions and the calamities) that are recorded and described in this book. And if anyone cancels or takes away from the statements of the book of this prophecy [these predictions relating to Christ's kingdom and its speedy triumph, together with the consolations and admonitions or warnings pertaining to them], God will cancel and take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the city of holiness (purity and hallowedness), which are described and promised in this book.




But if you do not listen to the Lord’s voice, but rebel against His command, then the hand of the Lord will be against you [to punish you], as it was against your fathers.

But they rebelled against Me and were not willing to listen to Me; they did not throw away the detestable things on which they feasted their eyes, nor did they give up the idols of Egypt.

“Then I decided to pour out My wrath on them and finish My anger against them in the land of Egypt.

But if you will not hearken to Me and will not do all these commandments, And if you spurn and despise My statutes, and if your soul despises and rejects My ordinances, so that you will not do all My commandments, but break My covenant, I will do this: I will appoint over you [sudden] terror (trembling, trouble), even consumption and fever that consume and waste the eyes and make the [physical] life pine away. You shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. read more.
I [the Lord] will set My face against you and you shall be defeated and slain before your enemies; they who hate you shall rule over you; you shall flee when no one pursues you. And if in spite of all this you still will not listen and be obedient to Me, then I will chastise and discipline you seven times more for your sins. And I will break and humble your pride in your power, and I will make your heavens as iron [yielding no answer, no blessing, no rain] and your earth [as sterile] as brass. And your strength shall be spent in vain, for your land shall not yield its increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruit. If you walk contrary to Me and will not heed Me, I will bring seven times more plagues upon you, according to your sins. I will loose the wild beasts of the field among you, which shall rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few so that your roads shall be deserted and desolate. If by these means you are not turned to Me but determine to walk contrary to Me, I also will walk contrary to you, and I will smite you seven times for your sins. And I will bring a sword upon you that shall execute the vengeance [for the breaking] of My covenant; and you shall be gathered together within your cities, and I will send the pestilence among you, and you shall be delivered into the hands of the enemy. When I break your staff of bread and cut off your supply of food, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall ration your bread and deliver it again by weight; and you shall eat, and not be satisfied. And if in spite of all this you will not listen and give heed to Me but walk contrary to Me, Then I will walk contrary to you in wrath, and I also will chastise you seven times for your sins. You shall eat the flesh of your sons and of your daughters. And I will destroy your high places [devoted to idolatrous worship], and cut down your sun-images, and throw your dead bodies upon the [wrecked] bodies of your idols, and My soul shall abhor you [with deep and unutterable loathing]. I will lay your cities waste, bring your sanctuaries to desolation, and I will not smell the fragrance of your sweet and soothing odors [of offerings made by fire]. And I will bring the land into desolation, and your enemies who dwell in it shall be astonished at it. I will scatter you among the nations and draw out [your enemies'] sword after you; and your land shall be desolate and your cities a waste. Then shall the land [of Israel have the opportunity to] enjoy its sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies' land; then shall the land rest, to enjoy and receive payments for its sabbaths [divinely ordained for it]. As long as it lies desolate and waste, it shall have rest, the rest it did not have in your sabbaths when you dwelt upon it. As for those who are left of you, I will send dejection (lack of courage, a faintness) into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; the sound of a driven leaf shall put them to hasty and tumultuous flight, and they shall flee as if from the sword, and fall when no one pursues them. They shall stumble over one another as if to escape a sword when no one pursues them; and you shall have no power to stand before your enemies. You shall perish among the nations; the land of your enemies shall eat you up. And those of you who are left shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands; also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away like them.


But if you refuse and rebel,
You shall be devoured by the sword.”
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

Warn the [neighboring] nations [that our adversary is coming]; announce to Jerusalem that besiegers are coming from a far country, and they shout against the cities of Judah. Like keepers of a field they are against her round about, because she has been rebellious against Me, says the Lord. Your ways and your doings have brought these things upon you. This is your calamity and doom; surely it is bitter, for surely it reaches your very heart!

And I will separate from you the rebels and those who transgress against Me; I will bring them out of the land where they temporarily live, but they will not enter the land of Israel. Thus you will know [without any doubt] that I am the Lord.


Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Edom [descendants of Esau] and for four [for multiplied delinquencies], I will not reverse the punishment of it or revoke My word concerning it, because he pursued his brother Jacob (Israel) with the sword, corrupting his compassions and casting off all pity, and his anger tore perpetually and his wrath he kept and heeded forever. So I will send a fire upon Teman which shall devour the strongholds of Bozrah [in Edom].

Thus says the Lord God: Because the Philistines have dealt revengefully and have taken vengeance contemptuously, with malice and spite in their hearts, to destroy in perpetual enmity, Therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will stretch out My hand against the Philistines, and I will cut off the Cherethites [an immigration in Philistia] and destroy the remainder of the seacoast. And I will execute great vengeance upon them with wrathful rebukes and chastisements, and they shall know (understand and realize) that I am the Lord, when I lay My vengeance upon them.


I have heard the taunts of Moab and the revilings of the Ammonites by which they have reproached My people, and magnified themselves and made boasts against their territory. Therefore, as I live, says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Moab shall become like Sodom and the Ammonites like Gomorrah, a land possessed by nettles and wild vetches and salt pits, and a perpetual desolation. The remnant of My people shall make a prey of them and what is left of My nation shall possess them.



Judgments are prepared for scoffers,
And beatings for the backs of [thickheaded] fools.

Therefore He brought the king of the Chaldeans against them, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or infirm; He gave them all into his hand.


For the tyrant will come to an end and the scorner will be finished,
Indeed all who are intent on doing evil will be cut off—

Render to them a recompense, O Lord, according to the work of their hands. You will give them hardness and blindness of heart; Your curse will be upon them. You will pursue and afflict them in anger and destroy them from under Your heavens, O Lord.



Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so you shall remove the evil from among you, and all Israel will hear of it and be afraid.



Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so you shall remove the evil from among you, and all Israel will hear of it and be afraid.


‘Then when seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans (Babylonia),’ says the Lord, ‘for their wickedness, and will make the land [of the Chaldeans] a perpetual waste.

But if [any nation] will not listen and obey, I will [completely] uproot and destroy that nation, says the Lord.”


For Jerusalem has stumbled and Judah has fallen,
Because their words and their actions are against the Lord,
To rebel against His glorious presence and defiantly provoke Him.

Behold therefore, I am bringing strangers upon you, the most terrible of the nations, and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom [O Tyre], and they shall defile your splendor. They shall bring you down to the pit [of destruction] and you shall die the [many] deaths of all the Tyrians that are slain in the heart of the seas. Will you still say, I am a god, before him who slays you? But you are only a man [made of earth] and no god in the hand of him who wounds and profanes you. read more.
You shall die the death of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers, for I have spoken it, says the Lord God.



Whoever secretly slanders his neighbor, him I will silence;
The one who has a haughty look and a proud (arrogant) heart I will not tolerate.

If a false witness rises up against any man to accuse him of wrongdoing, Then both parties to the controversy shall stand before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days. The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, read more.
Then you shall do to him as he had intended to do to his brother. So you shall put away the evil from among you. And those who remain shall hear and [reverently] fear, and shall henceforth commit no such evil among you. Your eyes shall not pity: it shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.



‘A man or woman who is a medium [who pretends to consult the dead] or who is a spiritist shall most certainly be put to death, and be stoned with stones; their blood is on them.’”

But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has counseled rebellion against the Lord your God who brought you from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery, to draw you away from the way in which the Lord your God has commanded you to walk. So you shall remove the evil from among you.



Confuse [my enemies], O Lord, divide their tongues [destroying their schemes],
For I have seen violence and strife in the city.


Further, the one who blasphemes the name of the Lord shall most certainly be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him. The stranger as well as the native-born shall be put to death when he blasphemes the Name [of the Lord].

Then Moses spoke to the Israelites, and they brought the one who had cursed [the Lord] outside the camp and stoned him with stones. Thus the Israelites did just as the Lord had commanded Moses.