“Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;”
You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me. The second clause prohibits the worship that makes idols functionally divine. The prohibition is paired with a self-disclosure: God is a jealous God. The jealousy is covenantal — the same jealousy a husband has when a wife is unfaithful to the marriage covenant. The punishment extended to the third and fourth generation is the natural consequence of idolatry passed down through family culture: children raised in idolatrous households inherit its patterns. Ezekiel 18:20 clarifies that children are not punished for their parents' sins — what is extended is the consequence of generational patterns, not individual guilt.
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