Nearly everyone thinks that an all-powerful God of love, patience, and compassion is a good thing. But if, because of your idol, your ultimate good is the power and status of your people, then anything that gets in the way of it is, by definition, bad. When God’s love prevented him from smashing Israel’s enemy, Jonah, because of his idol, was forced to see God’s love as a bad thing. In the end idols can make it possible to call evil good and good evil.111
