OP, applauds to you for having studied well the Bible. And the Bible has some wonderful teachings for our spiritual evolution to love and compassion.

One thing that is hard to reconcile though is that so many see God as merciful, forgiving, and loving, but yet that same God will not hesitate to torture us for eternity for disbelieving and disobeying.

Which is more preferable: God who is understanding and will patiently nurture all of us to become better humans. Or God who angers easily and will punish us in vengeance while only loving the "A" students.

The Bible conveys the great flood in Noah's time as a wrath of God to cleanse the Earth of human corruption. What if the great flood was a cyclic natutral event with a long interval of hundreds of thousands of years to cleanse not of evil humans but Earth.

Our common cold and fever are not illnesses, but rather are our smart body naturally adjusting for changes. So too this living smart Earth adjusts also. Daily weather changes are Earth's minor adjustments which we have been accustomed to and taken for granted. Then there are Earth's major adjustments with harsh impact that many will mistakenly believe are God's wrath on humanity for our poor choices.

As noted earlier the Bible teaches us how to grow up spiritually to love. Part of our learning is to experience all to know the contrasts and be able to make better choices. Hence we have been blessed with free will to freely choose to explore and experience all.

Those who are now strongly against killing and warring had killed in wars in this or past lifetimes.

Those who now despise scammers and deceivers had scammed and deceived in this or past lifetimes.

Those who strongly embraced God now had dismissed God in this or past lifetimes.

It is all part of growing up to greater wisdom and benevolent maturity.

And it bears repeating, those who are further ahead on the spiritual path to love will have deeper understanding and greater compassion for the people behind them, because they too were also once at that earlier point of less awareness and not knowing any better.

The caring and compassionate God will always lovingly nurture and patiently guide us all to become better humans, but in an unobtrusive manner to respect our free will.

Why unobtrusively? Because God wants us to willingly choose on our own to change for the better. When we change willingly, the change will be much more permanent and longer lasting, as opposed to being forced to change.

Free will makes growing up spiritually to love much more challenging.

And so the Word of God will always be caring, understanding, kind, uniting, uplifting, and empowering to inspire and encourage us to seek the love of God for comfort and guidance while we undergo the difficult journey of growing up to love.

Careful of any teachings claiming to be the Word of God that put fear in us, belittle us, divide us, confuse us, or place us in hierarchy. Those teachings are from humans still under the strong influence of their ego that knows not of love, compassion, gratitude, and equality.

A loving mother will always support and nurture her little children even when they made a mess, don't listen to her, or hate her.

What makes one believe God will not do the same with us when the immensity of God's love is thousand times or more greater.

As we move further along the spiritual path and with pure intent begin to fill our hearts with sincere love, we will never ever want or wish harm or suffering on anyone.

And we will also begin to see everything from a benevolent perspective. That means, what we earlier saw as our suffering and adversities will now be seen as blessed lesson opportunities to gain greater wisdom and benevolent maturity for more peace and calm in heart and mind. That makes filiing our hearts with sincere love a lot easier.

Love has always been the solution to all our problems.

Fear is the opposite of love. Fear divides us in anger, hatred, and superiority.

Why then would the caring and compassionate God of pure unconditional love would ever want to instill fear in us?

The Bible is a great book with wonderful spiritual teachings, but it too is not totally immune to manipulation and corruption by human greed and human biases.

All the best!