Age of Innocence

And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?

This dialogue with Jonah  over the destiny of the Ninevites implies a lot about God's mercy and accountability.  Evidently children that cannot tell their right hand from their left hand do not deserve judgment.  A good case for them being in heaven and the concept of the age of accountability.  Notice that God put the cattle in the same category!

The fact that He was willing to destroy the entire city if the adults did not repent speaks to the fact that His love and mercy did not outweigh the need for justice and judgment.

The prophet Jonah did not want to see mercy extended to these enemies of the Jews.  Ironic because the Jews via the Abrahamic covenant were supposed to be a conduit for blessing to all peoples of the earth.  A role that we as children of faith have been given and should take seriously.

Mene Mene Teckel Upharsin

And this is the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.
		This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it.
		TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.
		PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians. This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. Did you ever wonder what Jesus wrote on the ground before the woman caught in adultery and her accusers in John 8? The last time that same finger wrote anything in recorded history was in Daniel 5.  The message would be entirely appropriate only this time a translation would not be necessary because every Jewish child would know the dramatic story from Daniel.  It was a message to the Jewish leaders that brought the woman and applied to them as well to the temple worship they were about to lose because, though they could recognize the woman's sin, they would not recognize God in person and His grace and salvation to all.