“The wages of the righteous bring them life” is similar to Romans 6:23, “the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” And “The income of the wicked brings them punishment” is similar to Romans 6:23, “The wages of sin is death.”
The wages are the gift and the gift is the wages. The promise to the righteous here is not wealth, but eternal life in paradise with God for God is paradise. Heaven would be just another place if God wasn’t there. The coming Messianic kingdom on earth would just be another realm if Jesus isn’t going to rule on earth.
The promise to the wicked is a punishment of death. God promised Adam and Eve if they ate the forbidden fruit they would die. When they did the Glory of God left their being and their heart and mind were forever changed for the worse. Later their physical bodies also died.
The coming death for the wicked is the second death. (Revelations 21:8) “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur.” Punishment by fire and sulfur is prominent in both Biblical and non-Biblical Jewish writings and ancient cultures. The place where God is not is equated to a fiery lake with its endless pain, suffering, agony, and torment of what will remain.
So the choice is mine. Today, will I have the quality, state, and characteristic of being right in God’s eyes and ways? Or will I have the quality, state, and characteristic of being wicked in God’s eyes and ways? More than I am saved from punishment by my actions, for all sin and sin cannot be in paradise. Rather, I will receive God’s gift by not being punished for he forgives me in Christ.
