The word of the Lord came to me: “What do you people mean by quoting this proverb:

‘The fathers eat sour grapes/and the children’s teeth are set on edge’?

“As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, you will not longer quote this proverb in Israel. For every living soul belongs to Me, the father as well as the son — both alike belong to Me. The soul who sins is the one who will die.

“Suppose there is righteous man who does what is just and right. … Suppose he has a violent son, who sheds blood or does any of these other things (though the father had done none of them) … Will such a man live? He will not! Because he has done all these things, [the son] will surely be put to death and his blood will be on his own head.

“But suppose this son has a son who sees all the sins his father commits, and though he sees them, he does do not such things. He will not die for his father’s sin; he will surely live. But his father will die for his own sin, because he practiced extortion, robbed his brother and did what was wrong among his people.

“Yet you ask, ‘Why does the son not share the guilt of his father?’ Since the son has done what is just and right and has been careful to keep all my decrees, he will surely live. The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him.

“Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear, O house of Israel: Is it not your ways that are unjust?”

Ezekiel 18, most of the chapter