As soon as people start talking about God as a punisher I stop listening. The fundamental understanding of God biblically is that He is light and love with no darkness at all. At all means zero. It's incumbent on the believer to research and rightly divide the Word of God including understanding what part of the word is written to us in the grace administration. Romans through 2nd thessalonians. Romans tells us things written before times are for our learning... but not written directly to us i.e. what we call the old testament. Including Genesis to the gospel of John. Acts chapter 2 is the birth of the Christian church, the beginning of men being born from above and called sons of God. There is plenty to learn from both the OT and the books following thessalonians. But then epistles are addressed to us. Jesus Christ himself told us the thief comes to steal, and to Kill and to destroy, he exposed the devil as the source for all of that. While he said that he came that we might have life and have it more abundantly. John 10:10. So I choose to believe in the God that Christ spoke of being his Father, a loving God who so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son. We live in the midst of a crooked and perverse world BUT we shine as lights and are more than conquerors through him that loved us. God is love and there is no darkness in Him at all. It's OK to grab that and believe it because God says it of Himself. Don't ascribe the devils evil to God, old testament believers had no other choice because Satan wasn't revealed fully until Christ came, but Christ made it plain as day the contrast between God's love and the devils evil amd who gets the glory amd who should get the blame.