So Hilkiah the priest…went…to consult with the prophet Huldah. She said to them, “The LORD, the God of Israel, has spoken! Go back and tell the man who sent you, ‘This is what the LORD says: I am going to bring disaster on this city and its people. All the words written in the scroll that the king of Judah has read will come true. For my people have abandoned me and offered sacrifices to pagan gods, and I am very angry with them for everything they have done. My anger will burn against this place, and it will not be quenched.’”
The wrath of God is like a fire. My anger will burn… The early church fathers understood this fire to be the intense expression of his holy character, an expression that brings torment and destruction to the wicked, both in this life but much more in the next, but likewise joy and life to the righteous, both now and forever.
