I love your comment and your detail re-action to the verse, as a Muslim myself I feel a lot of discomforts when god talks about punishment, but when I see what is happening in the world from people cheating, stealing, killing rape, and many other crimes, it makes perfect sense that One can't kill another human and get away with it just like that, the verses that talks about punishment are for anyone who is causing harm to other humans. We also believe that God made humans in a way they can always choose to do good or bad, and one part clearly mentions: "there is any reward for goodness except goodness?".
I am sorry if it made you feel distressed at the end, but I was also expecting that, but just imagine you are a mother or father to little children and they are living in your house, As parents we make some rules, like do not lie, do not hit each other, and so on, and we want our children to have the best practices and education, hence we sometimes punish them if they cross the lines or send them to the naughty chair if they are not behaving well, So yes I do expect the creator to treat us the same way and worn us of the consequesnces if we go on earth and start messing around with our fellow humans.
Your comment is 9th winner of the 5 SBD challenge, Congrats.