Ezekiel 18:23
Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord GOD: and not that he should return from his ways, and live? Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord GOD: and not that he should return from his ways, and live?
God has no pleasure at all in the death of the wicked, but desires that the wicked return from his ways and live. He takes no delight in death, but takes pleasure when the wicked turn from sin. He bears patiently with people in sinful, idolatrous ways rather than destroying them, seeking to awaken them. He takes no pleasure in punishing the wicked, desiring them to repent and live, yet those who persist in dishonoring Him will reap the consequences of their course.
His way is equal, against the charge that His way is unequal. His judgment is not unequal or severe, for He will judge every one according to his ways. He is the owner of every soul, both father and son, so guilt is individual and not transferred; the son does not bear the iniquity of the father nor the father that of the son. Children who have reached years of accountability are responsible for their own actions and must cooperate with God in working out their own salvation, obeying God first when parents' commands conflict with God's commands.
A wicked person who turns from all wickedness and keeps God's statutes and does what is lawful and right shall surely live and shall not die, and all past transgressions shall not be mentioned to him. The return God seeks means casting away all transgressions and making a new heart and a new spirit so iniquity will not be ruin. That return is washing and being made clean, putting away the evil of doings, ceasing to do evil, learning to do well, seeking judgment, relieving the oppressed, judging the fatherless, pleading for the widow, restoring the pledge, giving again what was robbed, and walking in the statutes of life without committing iniquity.
He receives the sinner who repents and forsakes sin, but the sinner must turn rather than expect pardon while continuing in wrongdoing. The verse reveals His will to save and refutes the idea that He withholds mercy from those who want to return. Applied to apostate Israel under drought and famine, the great affliction was brought not from pleasure in suffering but to free the people from delusion, to lead them to understand their accountability to the One to whom they owed life and all things, and to help them recover lost faith. Apostasy is an evil more dreadful than all the multiplied horrors of famine, and judgment through famine was His means to call to repentance.
The verse calls for faithful warning work to those going astray that they may turn from sin and be saved from destruction. His servants are to do faithful work at all times and in all places, speaking just the same whether men will hear or whether they will forbear, bringing messages of reproof and warning to the people of God, to mothers, to fathers, to the children of Israel, that they may not move blindly. He would by this means help, instruct, strengthen, bless, refine, and ennoble them. If those who hear receive with patience and a generous, teachable spirit, the blessing of the Lord will come to them.