Punishment

Jeremiah 35:17 Therefore this is what the Lord God Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “Listen!  I am going to bring on Judah and on everyone living in Jerusalem every disaster I pronounced against them.  I spoke to them, but they did not listen; I called to them, but they did not answer.”

God is loving and kind … and fatherly, and in that capacity, He does what every loving and kind father does with wayward children.  He threatens punishment and then metes it out when the children ignore the warnings.  I almost chuckled at the picture of my mother and father doing the same thing as what is pictured here.  There were times when every child was punished because the real perpetrator did not own up, or because we had all participated in whatever wrong-doing had been perpetrated, and here God says He will punish the whole country (Judah) and the whole city (Jerusalem) because of the fact that when He spoke everyone did not listen or answer.  The only difference is that in this case all were truly guilty.