Tag Archives: punishment

The Story of the Exile of Israel and Judah—
The End of the Independent Hebrew Kingdoms

October 28, 2024Bible storiesahaz, babylon, betrayal, bible, blessings, bribes, buildings, death, deception, destruction, disasters, egypt, evil, failure, fire, god, hezekiah, hoshea, illness, imprisonment, injustice, israelites, jehoahaz, jehoiachin, jehoiakim, jews, josiah, kidnapping, law, massacres, money, moral influences, morality, murder, nebuchadnezzar, pagans, poverty, promises, prophecy, punishment, reward, samaritans, scapegoating, selfishness, temple, theft, violence, war, zedekiahR. A. Absalom

Where the Samaritans came from, according to the Jews

Jotham’s son Ahaz was an evil king of Judah, so God sent the kings of Israel and Aram to fight against him and defeat him after God had promised they wouldn’t defeat him.¹ After God predicted Assyria would destroy Judah, Ahaz got the king of Assyria to instead help him attack Israel, by giving him all the gold and silver from the temple of God.

Hoshea, the next king of Israel, was an evil traitor. When the king of Assyria found that out, he took Hoshea prisoner and conquered his country, putting an end to the kingdom of Israel. The people of Israel were exiled to Assyria, becoming the Ten Lost Tribes. The king of Assyria sent foreign pagans to settle in the former land of Israel, becoming Samaritans.

How Hezekiah used the gift of success

Ahaz’s son Hezekiah was the most righteous king Judah ever had. So God made him successful at everything. Hezekiah successfully convinced God to let his people break God’s law by celebrating the Passover in any way they wanted.

He successfully rebelled against the king of Assyria, so God told the king of Assyria to destroy Judah. But righteous Hezekiah kept the king of Assyria from conquering Judah by giving him all the gold and silver from the temple of God (which his father had already given to the king of Assyria). After Hezekiah successfully convinced the king of Assyria not to conquer Judah, the king of Assyria continued to try to conquer Judah, as God had commanded him, until God got him killed.

Hezekiah got sick, and God sent a prophet to tell him that he would never recover. But Hezekiah successfully convinced the never-changing God to change his mind, and so he recovered anyway.

Men from Babylon came to visit Hezekiah, and he showed them all the treasure and stuff he owned. The prophet told Hezekiah that now that the Babylonians knew about all that treasure, they were going to steal it all some day. And they would kidnap and castrate some of Hezekiah’s descendants. Righteous Hezekiah said he didn’t mind that, since he wouldn’t be around when it happened.

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The Story of the Good Kings of Judah—
No Rest for the Righteous

September 1, 2024Bible storiesgod, illness, injustice, joash, jotham, morality, murder, polygamy, prophecy, punishment, revenge, violence, warR. A. Absalom

After Queen Athaliah was murdered, she was replaced by the seven-year-old king Joash. He reigned for 40 years, doing what was right. Joash had two wives, and he wouldn’t worship God or listen to his prophets. God got Joash severely wounded in battle, and then his own officials murdered him.

Joash was succeeded by his son Amaziah, who killed his father’s murderers. He reigned for 29 years, doing what was right. Just like his father, Amaziah wouldn’t worship God or listen to his prophets. So God got the king of Israel to attack Judah, and then Amaziah got murdered, too.

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The Story of the Evil Kings of Judah—
David's Dynasty Starts to Approach Hitler Levels of Evil

July 7, 2024Bible storiesahab, ahaziah, asa, athaliah, bribes, censorship, death, evil, family, god, illness, imprisonment, incest, israelites, jehoram, jehoshaphat, jews, judgment, marriage, massacres, money, morality, pointlessness, punishment, rehoboam, reputation, theft, warR. A. Absalom

Rehoboam, the first king of Judah, was evil. He and his cousin Maakah had a son named Abijah, who succeeded him as king and was also evil. With God’s help, Abijah killed half a million Israelites.²

The next king of Judah was Abijah’s son Asa, and he always did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. Asa brutally oppressed his own people, led them to steal building materials from the king of Israel, and imprisoned people when they criticized him. He took money from God’s treasury and used it to pay the king of Aram to fight against God’s people Israel. God was displeased with this, because he had wanted to fight against Israel himself. So then Asa developed a severe foot disease, and he died two years later.

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The Story of Jonah and the Fish—
It was This Big!

June 9, 2024Bible storiesanimals, coercion, deception, destruction, disasters, emotion, escape, evil, failure, fasting, foolishness, gentiles, god, injustice, judgment, miracles, moral influences, morality, murder, obedience, pointlessness, prayer, prophecy, punishment, rescue, sacrifice, self-defeating, ships, torture, weatherR. A. Absalom

God told a prophet named Jonah to go to the Assyrian city of Nineveh and announce that it would be destroyed soon. But Jonah knew God well enough to know that he wouldn’t actually do what he said he would do. Jonah didn’t think it would be right to deliver a false prophecy, so he ran away from God and hid on a ship that was going somewhere else.³

But God sent a storm, which nearly wrecked the ship. The sailors found out that Jonah had angered his God and brought a storm on their ship. So Jonah suggested they throw him overboard, to divert God’s wrath away from the ship. But the sailors didn’t want to kill him. They tried to sail back and return him to land, so he could resume his mission.

But God liked Jonah’s idea better, so he made the storm worse and prevented them from getting back to land. So the sailors reluctantly threw Jonah overboard, and the storm stopped. God sent a huge fish, which swallowed Jonah and then threw him up on land three days later.

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The Story of Elisha and the Mean Boys—
God Rescues His Servant From Persecution

May 17, 2024Bible storiesanimals, child abuse, curses, death, disasters, flight, god, hair, heaven, insults, massacres, miracles, overreaction, prophecy, punishment, rescue, violenceR. A. Absalom

The life of Elijah the prophet ended when God took him up to heaven in a whirlwind. He was succeeded by his servant Elisha, who gained the ability to do miracles like Elijah had done. As Elisha was walking along, a bunch of boys saw him and started making fun of him because he was bald. This bothered Elisha, so he stopped to put a curse on them. Then God sent two bears out of the woods to maul the mean little boys, so the bald prophet could continue on his way without anyone reminding him that he was bald.

The end.

The moral of the story

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The Story of the Two Prophets—
An Expensive Meal

April 16, 2024Bible storiesanimals, betrayal, deception, failure, faith, fasting, food, god, injustice, jeroboam, mistakes, moral influences, murder, obedience, overreaction, pointlessness, prophecy, punishment, testsR. A. Absalom

During the reign of Jeroboam, God sent a prophet to deliver a message to the king. After ignoring the prophecy, the king invited the prophet to his home for a meal. But the prophet refused Jeroboam’s offer, because God had told him not to eat or drink until he got back to his own home.

On the way home, the prophet met an old prophet. The old prophet also invited him to have a meal, and the younger prophet explained again that he had to wait till he got home to eat. But the old prophet lied and told him that God wanted him to eat and drink with him. So the younger prophet went to the old prophet’s house and ate and drank. Then the old prophet declared that the younger prophet had disobeyed God and would be punished. The younger prophet tried to go home, but God sent a lion after him, and it killed him.

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The Story of Ahab and Micaiah—
God Admits to Inspiring False Prophecy

March 5, 2024Bible storiesahab, angels, betrayal, censorship, death, deception, failure, foolishness, god, imprisonment, injustice, jehoshaphat, micaiah, mind control, morality, murder, overreaction, prophecy, punishment, warR. A. Absalom

God decided to get King Ahab killed by sending him to war with Aram. He sent a spirit to deceive Ahab’s prophets so they would give him bad advice. Evil Ahab was considering retaking some territory that he had lost to Aram. But his ally, Jehoshaphat the good king of Judah, convinced him to seek advice from God first.

Ahab’s 400 prophets, under the influence of the deceiving spirit from God, told him that he should go fight Aram, and he would be successful. But there was one prophet, Micaiah, who had always prophesied bad things about Ahab, so Ahab hadn’t consulted him this time. But Jehoshaphat said he should.

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The Story of Rehoboam and Jeroboam—
The Kingdom Splits in Two

January 6, 2024Bible storiesbaasha, betrayal, death, escape, evil, failure, foolishness, god, idols, injustice, israelites, jeroboam, jews, massacres, mind control, murder, obedience, prophecy, punishment, rebellion, rehoboam, reputation, scapegoating, self-defeating, slavery, solomon, suicide, temple, torture, wisdom, workR. A. Absalom

God wanted to punish King Solomon for worshiping other gods. But he liked Solomon’s dead father too much to do that. So he decided to wait until Solomon was dead and punish his son instead.

A prophet announced that God was going to let most of Israel be taken over by Jeroboam, one of Solomon’s officials. Solomon wisely attempted to hinder God’s plan by killing Jeroboam. But before he could, Jeroboam fled to Egypt, where he waited for Solomon to die. Solomon was succeeded by his son Rehoboam.

The people of Israel told Rehoboam they would serve him, but only if he didn’t make them work as hard as his father had. Rehoboam wasn’t sure how to answer them, so he asked for advice. The elders he asked said he should give the people what they wanted. But the young men he asked said he should make the people work even harder. While torturing them with scorpions.

To punish Rehoboam for what his dead father had done, God made Rehoboam decide to follow the bad advice of the young men. This caused most of the Israelites to turn against him. Israel made Jeroboam their king instead of Rehoboam, but the tribes of Judah and Benjamin seceded from Israel. They became the kingdom of Judah, and kept Rehoboam as their king.

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The Story of David’s Census—
Morning by Morning He Dispenses With Justice

November 28, 2023Bible storiesdavid, death, disasters, emotion, evil, foolishness, god, illness, injustice, israelites, joab, judgment, massacres, money, moral influences, numbers, obedience, overreaction, pointlessness, punishment, sacrifice, scapegoatingR. A. Absalom

God was feeling angry at his people, and needed an excuse to punish them. So he told David to take a census of Israel.⁴ David’s commander Joab thought God’s idea was repulsive for some reason, but he helped David count the Israelites anyway.

After taking the census, David decided that Joab was right, that what he had done was foolish and sinful, and God agreed. God sent a prophet to ask David how he would like to be punished for obeying God. David didn’t fear God as much as he feared men, so he said he would prefer God to punish him himself, rather than sending David’s enemies to punish him.

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The Story of the House of Saul—
The Children's Teeth Are Set on Edge

September 20, 2023Bible storiesbetrayal, david, evil, famine, foolishness, genocide, god, injustice, massacres, prayer, promises, punishment, revenge, reward, saul, scapegoatingR. A. Absalom

During David’s reign, there was a famine in Israel. After it had gone on for three years, David asked God why there was a famine. God explained that he was punishing dead king Saul for trying to kill all the Gibeonites after Joshua had promised they wouldn’t be killed.

King David asked the remaining Gibeonites how he could make amends. They said they would like it if he helped them kill seven descendants of Saul. (Whose whole family had already been killed off.)

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Reductio Ad Absalom

For the message of the cross is foolishness.

Tag Archives: punishment

The Story of the Exile of Israel and Judah—
The End of the Independent Hebrew Kingdoms

Where the Samaritans came from, according to the Jews

How Hezekiah used the gift of success

The Story of the Good Kings of Judah—
No Rest for the Righteous

The Story of the Evil Kings of Judah—
David's Dynasty Starts to Approach Hitler Levels of Evil

The Story of Jonah and the Fish—
It was This Big!

The Story of Elisha and the Mean Boys—
God Rescues His Servant From Persecution

The moral of the story

The Story of the Two Prophets—
An Expensive Meal

The Story of Ahab and Micaiah—
God Admits to Inspiring False Prophecy

The Story of Rehoboam and Jeroboam—
The Kingdom Splits in Two

The Story of David’s Census—
Morning by Morning He Dispenses With Justice

The Story of the House of Saul—
The Children's Teeth Are Set on Edge