In the novel Holes, by Louis Sachar, God is called on to mete out punishment to Katherine and Sam, two characters in the back story. Sam is an African American man and Katherine is a white American woman of European descent. They fall in love with each other and share a kiss. A villager who witnesses the kiss and the village sheriff both tell Katherine and Sam that God will punish them.
Sam is punished -- killed -- by the townsfolk when he and Katherine are trying to escape in a boat. Perhaps Katherine is punished by God, because she becomes an outlaw, Kissin' Kate Barlow, and spends the next twenty years robbing and killing, and then dies, taking the secret location of her stolen loot with her.
Perhaps God punished the entire village of Green Lake, because on the day that Sam dies, rain stops falling on...
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Green Lake. The lake dries up and all the townsfolk move away.
God may also punish the Walker family. Trout Walker wants to marry Katherine, and he leads the attack on Sam when he realizes he won't get what he wants. The Walker family tries in vain to find Katherine's buried stolen treasure. The Warden, descendent of the Walker family, even eventually opens Camp Green Lake and forces juvenile delinquents to dig holes in search for the treasure, considered 'punishment' for their misdeeds. Â
It's possible that Stanley and the Yelnats family feel as if they are also being punished, but not by God. Stanley's great-great-grandfather, Elya Yelnats, was cursed with bad luck when he neglected to fulfil a promise to an old woman, Madame Zeroni, in the old country. However, all Stanley's bad luck eventually leads him to the buried treasure, the original property of his great-grandfather, also named Stanley Yelnats, and to fulfil Elya Yelnats's promise to Madame Zeroni when Stanley carries Zero (Hector Zeroni) up the mountain. Stanley's lawyer gets involved and the police come and arrest the Warden. So the universe rights itself and punishment rains down on those who deserve it. It is up to the reader to determine how much of the punishment is meted out by God.