And you also have done worse than your fathers: for, behold, every one of you walketh after the perverseness of his evil heart, so as not to hearken to me.
That you use among you this parable as a proverb in the land of Israel, saying: The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the teeth of the children are set on edge?
Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve them. I am the Lord thy God, mighty, jealous, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me:
Thus saith the Lord: A voice was heard on high of lamentation, of mourning and weeping, of Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted for them, because they are not.
Their father Jacob said: You have made me to be without children: Joseph is not living, Simeon is kept in bonds, and Benjamin you will take away. All these evils are fallen upon me.
Why dost thou not remove my sin, and why dost thou not take away my iniquity? Behold, now I shall sleep in the dust: and if thou seek me in the morning I shall not be.
But they said: We thy servants are twelve brethren, the sons of one man in the land of Chanaan. The youngest is with our father, the other is not living.
The Lord is patient and full of mercy, taking away iniquity and wickedness, and leaving no man clear. Who visitest the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation:
Thou shalt say to them: Because your fathers forsook me, saith the Lord, and went after strange gods and served them and adored them: and they forsook me and kept not my law.