"But this will not do, God will certainly punish you for stealing and for being unfaithful"

The sentence rings with pastoral urgency and theological certainty. The opening rebuff, “But this will not do,” rejects the human habit of rationalizing wrongdoing, excuses born of hardship, desire, or social custom. The following clause shifts the ground of judgment from human courts to the divine: “God will certainly punish.” That adverb “certainly” removes ambiguity and delay; even if society looks away or rewards the act, justice remains inevitable under God’s moral government. The named offenses, stealing and being unfaithful, come straight from the Decalogue and point to the two axes of covenant life: respect for the neighbor’s goods and fidelity to promises, whether marital, communal, or spiritual.

For an enslaved Christian writer like Jupiter Hammon, admonition functions on multiple registers. On the surface, it counsels individuals against sins that might be tempting under oppression, taking what is not theirs or betraying vows, reminding them that necessity never sanctifies transgression. At a deeper, coded level, it implicates those who benefit from theft and infidelity on a grand scale: the theft of labor, bodies, and time; the betrayal of Christian covenant by masters who profess faith yet deny its demands. The line thus becomes a mirror held up to both the powerless and the powerful, insisting that divine law cuts across status and race.

The rhetoric is pastoral rather than merely punitive. Warning aims at repentance. By anchoring judgment in God, Hammon offers a path back: acknowledge wrongdoing, seek forgiveness, realign conduct with covenant. The moral horizon is community-wide; faithfulness builds trust, while theft and betrayal corrode the fragile bonds that sustain people under duress. Ultimately the sentence advances a sober ethic of accountability. Expediency “will not do.” Only integrity, toward God and neighbor, averts the consequences of moral rupture and keeps hope alive in a world where human justice proves inconsistent, but divine justice does not.