I read the whole thing (even the fine print). God is not some fluffy bunny you put next to your pillow at night. He is your (at least my) Father. Fathers discipline and meet out punishiment as well as reward.
Then I would suggest you pick up the other versions cause some them condradict the others ... and while your at it ... you may want to seek out the chapters that were left out of the King James version ... and lastly .... just for accuracy ... you should read each chapter in it's original language ... if only to avoid the many documented mistranslations
Look. If you want a cafeteria style bible that just kind of skips over the passages about hell, you go right ahead.
I read the whole thing (even the fine print). God is not some fluffy bunny you put next to your pillow at night. He is your (at least my) Father. Fathers discipline and meet out punishiment as well as reward.
God, indeed, chastens His children.
But there is a big difference between being chastened by a loving Father ... and being judged as an unbeliever.1 Corinthians 11:31 For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.
32 But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.
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Hebrews 12:5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:
6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.
9 Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?
10 For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.
11 Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.