When Jews read the Bible, the God whom we Jews meet there is in the image of a father who loves his children with an overwhelming passion. This father has very high expectations of his children, but he also indulges them. He loves to treat them well and make them happy. Some Christians believe that the God of the Old Testament is a stern God of strict judgment without mercy, but a religious Jew would not be able to discover such a deity in the Hebrew Bible.[27]
