To enjoy a good life (verse 12) you must live a good life (verses 13–14). This challenges the lie of the serpent in Eden that if we obey God fully we will be miserable, that rich living lies outside God’s will, not within it.29 This lie has passed deeply into every human heart: that we would be happier if we, rather than God, were free to choose how our lives should be lived. But the ultimate good is knowing God personally, and the ultimate punishment is just as personal—to lose the face of God (verse 16), the only source of joy and love, to be “left utterly and absolutely outside—repelled,
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