(119) Ancestral sin.

For sin is not to have any power over you, since you are not under the law but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? Of course not! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, although you were once slaves of sin, you have become obedient from the heart to the pattern of teaching to which you were entrusted. Freed from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness. (Rom 6:14-18)

You shall not carve idols for yourselves in the shape of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth; you shall not bow down before them or worship them. For I, the LORD, your God, am a jealous God, inflicting punishment for their fathers’ wickedness on the children of those who hate me, down to the third and fourth generation; but bestowing mercy down to the thousandth generation, on the children of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Ex 20:4-6)

«Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children for their fathers; only for his own guilt shall a man be put to death. (Deut 24:16)

As I once watched over them to uproot and pull down, to destroy, to ruin, and to harm, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the LORD. In those days they shall no longer say, «The fathers ate unripe grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge,» but through his own fault only shall anyone die: the teeth of him who eats the unripe grapes shall be set on edge. (Jer 31:28-30)

Only the father, since he violated rights, and robbed, and did what was not good among his people, shall in truth die for his sins. You ask: «Why is not the son charged with the guilt of his father?» Because the son has done what is right and just, and has been careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live. (Ezek 18:18-19)