Thanks, John!

Re: your questions/dilemmas. Does God punish? In one sense, perhaps not. Much (or all?) of what could be called God's punishment are the natural consequences of our freely chosen actions. But in another sense, God does punish. He is the One Who IS. He superintends the whole of the created order, and all of the consequences of our actions; and though He does not want us to suffer, He wills it to be in His plan, considering the existence of sin in the world, flowing from our free choice. And I think that that nowadays many of us have difficulty with the idea of punishment, and so explanations that emphasize the first perspective over the second are more common. But punishment is not, in itself, a bad thing. A good parent punishes their children at times, as part of fulfilling their duty to discipline them.