Ezekiel chapter 16

v 41

That's one hell of a punishment. Economically, publicly, libertarily punished. I don't know if that's a word, but I know what it means.

v 42

Well, isn't that nice to know... seriously, we would tell each other that if we get angry, we should calm down before we lose it and beat our wives, or we would say that if we're going to punish someone for wrongdoing (say a child) we should do it out of righteousness, not in anger.

But God can never do anything wrong. So he can punish someone while angry, and his anger will then subside, and the punishment was still perfect.

v 43

God punishes his people because they have forgotten their roots, and forgotten him. And they were lewd about it, to add insult to injury.

v 44

But wait, who was her mother? The metaphor is stretching here, and I hope it gets explained.

v 45

Okay. So basically out of the people of the earth came Israel (or more correctly Jerusalem) and of course all the people of the earth are sinful and turn their backs on God.

v 46

Basically a bunch of peoples who never really cared that much about God. But that was just the city surely. I mean, David would have no doubt cleaned it out of its former inhabitants. But I guess God's point is that the new ones that moved in weren't any better.

v 47

See, this is the thing. Israel inherited an empty city (well, cleaned it out, but you know what I mean). And yet, they still ended up living like the people who lived there before, and even became worse. This is not what you expect of the people of God.

v 48

That's pretty harsh. We're talking about a city that God destroyed by raining down sulfur and fire on it. And his own people were even more despicable. And he's telling them so.

v 49

So for your information, it wasn't just about the surprise buttsex. That was a symptom of the real problem - arrogant, overfed and unconcerned. An "abundance of idleness" as the KJV says. They didn't help the poor and needy, they just lived their fatcat lives, and thought they could do whatever they wanted.

v 50

And so God wiped them out. Bam. This would tell plenty of us today that we are overdue for an ass kicking, surely. I'm not the kind of person to harp on this point, but really as the last vestiges of Christian culture disappear, things do get worse. Don't get me wrong, I don't think culture saves people, I think Christ saves people. And culture alone didn't prevent heinous acts either, I'll bet. But a majority of believing Christians in population probably helped. How did they lose power? I guess because they ignored the Shema, and they didn't pass it on to their kids properly. Bam.

Yes, that's two bams.