Today, we hear the Lord saying a word that, right off the bat, does not seem to "fit" with His merciful Love: "punishment". But His punishment is not like ours, in the sense that God imposes fines and likes to harm us. The expression "God's punishment" points toward my having mistaken the right track I should follow and therefore, ulterior consequences may ensue for following these false tracks and leaving the real life.

In the divine language, punishment is the situation in which human beings enter when we move away from our true essence, or when we do not respect someone else’s dignity, and turn our backs from the truth... Then, the individual takes advantage of his freedom, and abuses it. Through this false path, man tramples what he has been created for, by destroying himself.

—O Lord, You are my Creator, Who has come to us leaving Your footprints on our Earth. Let me see my path in Your footsteps.