The law from Exodus which I quote below is from The New American Bible: “Whoever sacrifices to any god, except the Lord alone, shall be doomed.”
Notice that Yahweh wants both witches and warlocks, and their faithful followers, all put to death. That, on the surface makes God seem cruel, if witches, and warlocks and their follower’s worship evil deities, and, worse, if they all worship good, pagan deities.
It also makes God seem jealous, vindictive, petty, exclusive, and fanatical, for a good deity, ordering his followers to kill those worship rival Gods, would seem to contradict his own law of moderation as an ethical and holy standard to live up to and by.
I think this dilemma can be resolved. If Yahweh seemed or was partially vindictive or fanatical in ancient days, that might be justified as that is how a backwards, emotional, irrational, fanatical people needed to be talked to, commanded, and dealt with by Him.
We cannot judge other people, and we need to be cautious about condemning God within the context of our logic and standards today.
It seems to me that Yahweh loved humans and wanted them to thrive, leading moral and pious lives, and sometimes it took force and violence to rivet their wandering attention spans. These rebellious, defiant, sinful desert-dwellers are not easy to civilize or prepare to enter heaven.
Here is this same law from the Holy Bible: “He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed.”
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