The One Year Bible - Day 92

There are a few places where the OT seems really strong on punishment and uses the phrase, "all Israel will hear about it and be afraid". It was clear in the OT that the two primary purposes for capital punishment were firstly to remove the evil from the land and secondly to provide a deterrent to others who might think about doing the same thing. In this country nowadays, these things are rarely mentioned and the most likely objection that people have to any form of incarceration is that "it won't stop him doing it again". Punishment is never about rehabilitation, that is a human concept, that you can take a bad person and somehow train him to learn from his mistakes. We all know that doesn't work. For some reason though, many of us are uncomfortable with the whole idea of punishment, especially corporal or capital, we think it is "not very nice" but this is irrelevant. The point is, with consistency, people know beforehand that a certain crime attracts a certain punishment and they know that if they commit the crime, they will get the same. This is all out the window now where murder sentences vary from a few years to 30 or more so you might as well take your chance. I wonder what God would make of our justice system?