[spoiler]I'm posting this because it is one of my most popular questions. [b]NOTE[/b]: It isn't finished yet, and I hope that I'll be able to explain later as to how this ties in with the salvation of those who never knew God.[/spoiler]Firstly, we must understand that the mentality of a Christian dictates that God is God. He is the entity that owes nothing anything. His sovereignty is what gives Him the justifiable right to do with what is His. Accordingly, [b]humanity deserves damnation out of the fact that we possess a sinful proclivity[/b] and willing admonishment to every evil deed humans can possibly imagine. The thinking is that humanity deserves and is pre-destined to receive this reality, but why is the killing of women and children contained in scripture? [b]There was a point in history where God was the immediate king of a people[/b], Israel, which is differently expressed as to how modern Christians view God as king over the Church. In OT times, Israel was under a theocracy in which the citizens were in subjugation to the rule of God until they demanded from the Levitical priests and from the current prophet Samuel to provide the people with a tangible king, but before this demand in additional politics, [b]there was an ethnic dimension that affected the society socially and politically[/b]. God was the immediate king, and He used His people as an instrument to accomplish His judgment in the world at that time. God stated to Abraham before the Hebrew's captivity in Egypt, "[i]And they[/i] (Israel, Jacob, or the Hebrews), [i]shall come back here [/i](Canaan, modern Israel, Syria, and Iran) [i]in the fourth generation, for the iniquity [/i](sin or transgression of the law) [i]of the Amorites is not yet complete[/i]" (Gen. 15:16, ESV). Afterward, God sent His own people as the instruments of His judgment. God's punishment isn't in response to arbitrary reasons. [b]We must remember that the punishment inflicted upon anyone was always in response to an ethical upheaval[/b]. As portrayed in the story of Jonah, it depicted a man who was instructed to go to Nineveh in order for the city to have the opportunity to repent of it's wickedness. From an un-bias perspective, the situation describes an Israelite going to the Assyrian Capitol (not even an Israelite-affiliated nation) to demand them to repent from the wickedness they participated in daily. Unlike the Amorites, the citizens of Nineveh were ignorant, and instead of being treated with the deserved "wrath of God," they were oddly met with mercy. A current example of this right today is exhibited by the will of God to bestow the "sword" unto the government (Rom. 13:4); therefore, [b]the government has the justified and biblical right to take a rapist or a murderer with the intention of putting him in jail or to put him to death[/b]. This form of capital punishment is consistent with Genesis 9 and consistent with God's character and attitude toward the value of man, stating, "[i]Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image[/i]" (Gen. 9:6), which is very different than saying, "Anybody can go around killing anyone for any reason." [b]Currently, Christians were never intended to be a political entity, but another instrument to spread the theological thinking[/b]. During those times, God shared His authority to take life, but [b]the Church today is not under the same theocratic bureaucracy that once governed the nation of Ancient Israel.[/b]