In the short story "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God", Jonathan Edwards uses techniques such as diction, figurative language, and figures of speech to generate the two tones, condemning at first and merciful in the end.

Edwards uses diction to emphasize the minister's threatening accusations as well as the hope articulated towards the end. The minister frightens his people by stating how daunting the "wrath" of God can be. Such fury can be related to how a teen would fear her parents after sneaking out with the car and later crashing it due to drunk driving. He warns the people how they will be "tormented" in hell. Such dreadfulness is associated with a Prisoner of War and how the enemy puts them through such agony that one would rather die than to be a P.O.W. Mounting fear upon the people even more, he tells...