14 Bible Verses About Generational Curses

Exodus 20:5

“You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.”

Reflection: The warning belongs to the commandment against making carved images and bowing to them (Exodus 20:4). It is limited to the generations “of those who hate me,” and the next verse sets beside it “steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.” Deuteronomy 5:9-10 repeats both clauses when Moses restates the commandments, and Deuteronomy 7:9 speaks of steadfast love kept “to a thousand generations.”

Exodus 34:7

“…keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

Reflection: Here the words are part of the name the Lord proclaims as he passes before Moses on Mount Sinai, after Moses has asked to see his glory (Exodus 33:18) and has cut new tablets to replace the ones he broke (34:1). The proclamation opens with mercy, grace, patience and steadfast love “for thousands,” and forgiveness of “iniquity and transgression and sin” comes before the clause about the children and the children’s children.

Numbers 14:18

“‘The LORD is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.’”

Reflection: Moses quotes Exodus 34 back to God after Israel refuses to enter Canaan and talks of choosing a leader to go back to Egypt (Numbers 14:4). He asks for pardon, and the Lord answers, “I have pardoned, according to your word” (14:20). The adults still die in the wilderness, and their children “shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years and shall suffer for your faithlessness” (14:33). Verse 31 says the Lord will bring those children into the land.

Deuteronomy 24:16

“Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin.”

Reflection: Set among Israel’s laws, the rule forbids executing anyone for a parent’s or a child’s crime. 2 Kings 14:5-6 shows it applied: when King Amaziah struck down the servants who had murdered his father, “he did not put to death the children of the murderers, according to what is written in the Book of the Law of Moses,” and the historian quotes this verse.

Jeremiah 31:29-30

“In those days they shall no longer say: ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’ But everyone shall die for his own iniquity. Each man who eats sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge.”

Reflection: Jeremiah quotes a proverb about sour grapes that blamed the fathers for the children’s suffering, and says that “in those days” it will no longer be said. “But everyone shall die for his own iniquity.” The next verse announces a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah (31:31).

Ezekiel 18:20

“The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.”

Reflection: Ezekiel hears the same sour-grapes proverb in use and is told it “shall no more be used by you in Israel” (Ezekiel 18:3). The chapter then describes a son “who sees all the sins that his father has done; he sees, and does not do likewise,” and says of him, “he shall not die for his father’s iniquity; he shall surely live” (18:14, 17). It ends with a call to the whole house of Israel: “make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit!” and “so turn, and live” (18:31-32).

Leviticus 26:40-42

“But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in their treachery that they committed against me, and also in walking contrary to me, so that I walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies—if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity, then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.”

Reflection: Near the end of the covenant warnings of Leviticus 26 comes this condition. If the people carried into the land of their enemies confess their own iniquity “and the iniquity of their fathers,” and their heart is humbled, God will remember his covenant with Jacob, Isaac and Abraham, “and I will remember the land.” Verse 39 has just said that those left would rot away because of their own iniquity and their fathers’.

Nehemiah 9:2

“And the Israelites separated themselves from all foreigners and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers.”

Reflection: On a day of fasting, in sackcloth and with earth on their heads, the Israelites “confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers.” The Levites then lead a long prayer that blesses God as creator (Nehemiah 9:5-6) and retells Israel’s history from the call of Abram onward (9:7).

Psalm 106:6

“Both we and our fathers have sinned; we have committed iniquity; we have done wickedness.”

Reflection: In one sentence the psalm confesses the sin of the generation praying and of its ancestors, then spends most of its length on the fathers, beginning with their rebellion “by the sea, at the Red Sea” (Psalm 106:7). The confession is addressed to God, and the psalm opens and closes with “Praise the Lord!”

Lamentations 5:7

“Our fathers sinned, and are no more; and we bear their iniquities.”

Reflection: Lamentations 5 is a prayer for Jerusalem that opens, “Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us” (5:1). Verse 7 says the survivors bear the iniquities of fathers who are gone, and verse 16 adds, “woe to us, for we have sinned!” The poem keeps both statements and ends by asking God to restore his people, “unless you have utterly rejected us” (5:22).

2 Kings 17:41

“So these nations feared the LORD and also served their carved images. Their children did likewise, and their children’s children—as their fathers did, so they do to this day.”

Reflection: The verse closes the account of the peoples the king of Assyria settled in the cities of Samaria (2 Kings 17:24). They feared the Lord and served their own gods at the same time, and the historian notes that their children and grandchildren kept the same mixed worship: “as their fathers did, so they do to this day.”

Deuteronomy 30:19

“I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live,”

Reflection: Moses sets “life and death, blessing and curse” before Israel and names what the choice decides for those who come after: “that you and your offspring may live.” Verse 20 describes choosing life as “loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him.” Verses 17-18 name the other choice, turning away to worship other gods and serve them.

John 9:2-3

“And his disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.’”

Reflection: The disciples’ question assumes that a man born blind is paying for a sin, either his own or his parents’. Jesus rejects both options and gives another reason, “that the works of God might be displayed in him,” and then sends the man to wash in the pool of Siloam, from which he comes back seeing (John 9:6-7).

Galatians 3:13-14

“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree’—so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.”

Reflection: Paul names the curse three verses earlier: “all who rely on works of the law are under a curse,” because the law curses everyone “who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law” (Galatians 3:10). Christ bears that curse by being hanged on a tree, which Deuteronomy 21:23 calls cursed by God. The two purpose clauses that follow are the blessing of Abraham reaching the Gentiles and the promised Spirit received through faith.