Thought from today’s Bible reading from 2 Kings 14; 2 Chronicles 25.
Amaziah became king of Judah after his father, Joash, was killed. When an appropriate time came, he punished those who were guilty of killing his father.
“Now it came about, as soon as the kingdom was firmly in his hand, that he killed his servants who had slain the king his father. But the sons of the slayers he did not put to death, according to what is written in the book of the Law of Moses, as the Lord commanded, saying, ‘The fathers shall not be put to death for the sons, nor the sons be put to death for the fathers; but each shall be put to death for his own sin” (2 Kings 14:5-6).
Amaziah could have reacted emotionally, rather than according to the Law. It would have been easy to do so since it was his father that had been killed. But rather than overreact and kill the children of the guilty men, he killed only those who were guilty. This was in keeping with the law (Deuteronomy 24:16).
This principle does not just apply to judicial punishment but to spiritual punishment as well. The prophet Ezekiel makes this clear for us.
“The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the father’s iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son’s iniquity; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself” (Ezekiel 18:20).
When we stand before the Lord in judgment, we will answer for what we have done, not for what anyone else has done (2 Corinthians 5:10). Let us be sure that our lives measure up to God’s standard so we can avoid His wrath even if others we are close to do not.
Tomorrow’s reading: Jonah 1-4
[I’m using the Chronological reading plan on the Bible Gateway website if you’d like to follow along, too.]
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