21 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, set your face towards Jerusalem and preach against the sanctuaries. Prophesy against the land of Israel 3 and say to the land of Israel, Thus says the Lord: Behold, I am against you and will draw my sword from its sheath and will cut off from you both righteous and wicked. 4 Because I will cut off from you both righteous and wicked, therefore my sword shall be drawn from its sheath against all flesh from south to north. 5 And all flesh shall know that I am the Lord. I have drawn my sword from its sheath; it shall not be sheathed again.
6 “As for you, son of man, groan; with breaking heart and bitter grief, groan before their eyes. 7 And when they say to you, ‘Why do you groan?’ you shall say, ‘Because of the news that it is coming. Every heart will melt, and all hands will be feeble; every spirit will faint, and all knees will be weak as water. Behold, it is coming, and it will be fulfilled,’” declares the Lord God.
8 And the word of the Lord came to me: 9 “Son of man, prophesy and say, Thus says the Lord, say:
“A sword, a sword is sharpened
and also polished,
10 sharpened for slaughter,
polished to flash like lightning!
(Or shall we rejoice? You have despised the rod, my son, with everything of wood.) 11 So the sword is given to be polished, that it may be grasped in the hand. It is sharpened and polished to be given into the hand of the slayer.12 Cry out and wail, son of man, for it is against my people. It is against all the princes of Israel. They are delivered over to the sword with my people. Strike therefore upon your thigh. 13 For it will not be a testing—what could it do if you despise the rod?” declares the Lord God.
14 “As for you, son of man, prophesy. Clap your hands and let the sword come down twice, yes, three times, the sword for those to be slain. It is the sword for the great slaughter, which surrounds them, 15 that their hearts may melt, and many stumble. At all their gates I have given the glittering sword. Ah, it is made like lightning; it is taken up for slaughter. 16 Cut sharply to the right; set yourself to the left, wherever your face is directed. 17 I also will clap my hands, and I will satisfy my fury; I the Lord have spoken.”
The only concept of punishment that seems to be accepted as ethically honourable or allowable today is that of punishment as remedial or corrective. If it cannot be shown to be either of these, it is turned down as ethically improper and inadmissible. This, basically, is the reasoning which abolished capital punishment; for of course, capital punishment is not corrective or remedial. When a man dies, no more correction is possible, and no more remedial treatment either. This is all very high-sounding, and very progressive and advanced, and to many is very Christian - except for one thing: when we turn to the Scriptures we find ourselves in a different world. The Bible is not afraid to speak of punishment as retributive, and as desert for wrongdoing, nor is this merely an Old Testament concept, for it is found just as much in the New Testament as in the Old, and on the lips of Jesus as much as on the lips of Ezekiel and the other prophets. One fatal flaw in the corrective or remedial theory is this: what right has any government, or any individual, to impose remedial or corrective measures upon anyone, unless he deserves them. What right has any government, or any prison service or any judiciary to try to correct anybody's life, unless he deserves to be corrected? The moment we introduce the idea and concept of desert, we cut the feet away from the arguments that have been used to abolish capital punishment, and to introduce so much of the penal legislation that we suffer from today, when crime is made to pay. The truth of the matter is that the concept of desert is the only thing that provides any link between punishment and justice. As C.S. Lewis points out, 'It is only as deserved or undeserved that a sentence can be just or unjust'.