21
how much more care would you exercise in judging your children, to whose fathers you had given such rich promises by means of solemn pledges and covenants?
22
While you are disciplining us, you scourge our enemies ten thousand times as much, in order that we may keep your goodness in mind when we ourselves are passing judgment. And you teach us that when we ourselves are judged, we should expect your mercy.
23
It was for this reason that you tortured those who lived foolish and unjust lives through their own disgusting offenses.
24
They wandered far even from the normal ways in which people err! They took horrible things to be gods, the worst forms of animal life. They were deceived like foolish children.
25
So you sent your judgment upon them to mock them, treating them as if they were in fact mindless children.
26
The ones who weren't brought back to their senses by this mocking judgment would experience the just judgment of God.
27
They were plagued by the very things they once took to be gods, and came to hate them. In the end, they recognized that you, whom they had so long denied to be God, were in fact God. It was then that the full weight of judgment fell upon them.