We tend to acknowledge in a more general way that we are sinners. And we tend to speak lightly, even perhaps joke at times, about our idolatries. But Zephaniah 1:14–18 portrays a God whose anger and punishment for sin are both terrible and complete, and who is fiercely jealous, such that his jealousy can be kindled into flames of wrath. He will not let idolatry go unpunished. The of Jerusalem was literally destroyed by fire in 586 BC (see 2 Kings 25:1–30). As the prophet Zephaniah spoke, the day was indeed drawing near for God’s fierce thunderclouds of judgment on his people’s sins to be poured out1 was only a foretaste of a great retribution still to come, which Christ will bring in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might
(2 Thessalonians 1:8–9).2 That day is still to come.
14 The great day of the LORD is near, near and hastening fast; the sound of the day of the LORD is bitter; the mighty man cries aloud there.