“But suppose he in turn has a son who notices all the sins his father commits, considers them, and does not follow his father’s example.

They have sex with their father’s wife within you; they violate women during their menstrual period within you.

Therefore fathers will eat their sons within you, Jerusalem, and sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgments on you, and I will scatter any survivors to the winds.

The person who sins is the one who will die. A son will not suffer for his father’s iniquity, and a father will not suffer for his son’s iniquity; the righteous person will be judged according to his righteousness, and the wicked person according to his wickedness.

“Yet you say, ‘Why should the son not suffer for his father’s iniquity?’ When the son does what is just and right, and observes all my statutes and carries them out, he will surely live.

They have treated father and mother with contempt within you; they have oppressed the foreigner among you; they have wronged the orphan and the widow within you.

“Are you willing to pronounce judgment? Are you willing to pronounce judgment, son of man? Then confront them with the abominable practices of their fathers,

As for his father, because he practices extortion, robs his brother, and does what is not good among his people, he will die for his iniquity.

refrains from wrongdoing, does not engage in usury or charge interest, carries out my regulations and follows my statutes. He will not die for his father’s iniquity; he will surely live.

One commits an abominable act with his neighbor’s wife; another obscenely defiles his daughter-in-law; another violates his sister – his father’s daughter – within you.

“What do you mean by quoting this proverb concerning the land of Israel, “‘The fathers eat sour grapes And the children’s teeth become numb?’

Indeed! All lives are mine – the life of the father as well as the life of the son is mine. The one who sins will die.

“‘But I said to their children in the wilderness, “Do not follow the practices of your fathers; do not observe their regulations, nor defile yourselves with their idols.

“Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: Will you defile yourselves like your fathers and engage in prostitution with detestable idols?

Then you will live in the land I gave to your fathers; you will be my people, and I will be your God.

“‘They must not come near a dead person or they will be defiled; however, for father, mother, son, daughter, brother or sister, they may defile themselves.

Then you will know that I am the Lord when I bring you to the land of Israel, to the land I swore to give to your fathers.

I did this because they did not observe my regulations, they rejected my statutes, they desecrated my Sabbaths, and their eyes were fixed on their fathers’ idols.

(though the father did not do any of them). He eats pagan sacrifices on the mountains, defiles his neighbor’s wife,

Just as I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will enter into judgment with you, declares the sovereign Lord.