So, the God of the Old Testament is perfect and people got punished for falling short and doing bad things such as being selfish and not caring for orphans and widows.

And God had to be really judgmental at the time because remember in ancient history people would kill each other for sport. And so the Jews had to be radically different from everyone else to live in God's Way, so we got, "Thou shall not kill" and fire and plagues and all that.

But the New Testament changed everything with the coming of Jesus Christ.

Jesus is totally radical. Forget what culture and mankind have done to the message so often through puritanical teaching. Jesus is all about love, and loving others, and receiving love. It's astounding to encounter this for the first time. At least it was for me.