Eze 9:6, 1Pe 4:17 | Geneva | STEP | Slay utterly old [and] young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom [is] the {g} mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the {h} elders who [were] before the house. (g) Thus in all his plagues the Lord preserves his small number, which he marks as in but the chief mark is the spirit of adoption, with which the heart is sealed up to life everlasting. (h) Which was the chief opportunity for all these evils, as in .

Ezekiel 9:6

Slay utterly old [and] young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom [is] the {g} mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the {h} elders who [were] before the house.

(g) Thus in all his plagues the Lord preserves his small number, which he marks as in Ex 12:12, Re 7:3 but the chief mark is the spirit of adoption, with which the heart is sealed up to life everlasting. (h) Which was the chief opportunity for all these evils, as in Eze 8:11.

1 Peter 4:17

{16} For the time [is come] that judgment must begin at the house of God: and {17} if [it] first [begin] at us, what shall the end [be] of them that obey not the gospel of God?

(16) The third reason: because the Lord of all the world being especially watchful over those in his household, does therefore discipline them first of all, yet so that he keeps a measure in his greatest severity. As he always used to do until now, so he does now especially when he exhibited himself in person to his Church. (17) Lest the godly should be offended and stumble at that vain shadow of happiness of the wicked, as though God were not the governor of the world, for that the wicked are in good case, and the godly in evil, the apostle teaches by an argument of a comparison of them together, that God who spares not his own, but nurtures them under the cross, will at length in his time handle the rebellious and wicked far otherwise, whom he has appointed to utter destruction.