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0 Sticks and stones: A man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day is stoned to death

I kill ... I wound ... I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh. Deuteronomy 32:39-42

Sticks and stones: A man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day is stoned to death

This one is pretty simple.

A man is caught gathering sticks on the Sabbath day.

While the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath day. Numbers 15:32

The people ask Moses what to do about it.

They ... brought him unto Moses and Aaron ... because it was not declared what should be done to him. 15:33-34

God tells Moses that everyone must stone the Sabbath breaker to death.

The LORD said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones. 15:35

So that's what they do.

All the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the LORD commanded Moses. 15:36

Immediately after the stoning, God gets down to some more important business -- like instructing the people on how to make fringes on their garments.

The LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue. 15:37-38

You see, God wants us to put fringes on our garments so that when we see the purple fringes we'll say to ourselves, "Oh yeah, I'm supposed to follow all of God's laws."

It shall be unto you for a fringe, that ye may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the LORD, and do them. 15:39a

That way, when we see someone working on the Sabbath, we'll remember to stone him or her to death, on the spot, instead of following our own heart.

That ye seek not after your own heart and your own eyes. 15:39b

People who follow their hearts seldom stone people to death.

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