According to the biblical texts, what is repeatedly said to provoke God to wrath is not the failure or refusal of his people to give him what he wants for his own sake but their persistent practice of the type of unjust, oppressive, and violent behavior that destroys their lives and those of others. It is his passionate and burning desire that suffering and evil be brought to an end for good that leads him to take action against those who refuse to desist from that behavior in order to put an end to it. While at times this involves bringing down great evils upon his people, his ultimate aim is not to destroy them or make them suffer but to purify them from the ways of thinking and behaving that make it impossible for him to bless them with true life and wholeness.