Deuteronomy 24:16

The parents will not die for the children nor will the children die for the parents: each one will die in his sin. This is not only what the prophets have said (Cf Ez 18,18-20). The law itself says that each one will perish through his fault, not that of his father or that of his son. What does it mean what is said in another place: God who punishes the sins of the parents in the children until the third and fourth generation? (Ex 20,5) Is that understood perhaps from the unborn children because of original sin, that the gender Is human also dragged from Adam, and here, on the other hand, has the distinction of the already born children been made, so that each one dies for his sin? Well, it draws nothing from the father who was already born when his father sinned. But when it is also said there: to those who hate me, it is clear that that condition can also be changed, if the children had not imitated the actions of their parents. For even what comes from Adam is temporarily imputed, because everyone dies for it, but eternally imputed to those who have been regenerated spiritually by grace and have remained in it until the end. But if the sins of the parents in the children are imputed to those who hate God, it could also be asked with all reason why they are imputed until the third and fourth generation, leaving aside the first and second, or why not they impute also to the other generations, if the impiety and the imitation of the bad parents remain. Or did you want to indicate the totality with this number, because the seven is understood and the number seven itself has not been put to say: "until the seventh generation", and thus the totality would be understood, since in this way it was indicated more Well the cause of the perfection of this number? This number is considered perfect precisely because it consists of these two, that is, number three, odd in its entirety, and number four, even in its entirety. I think that this prophetic oracle is also derived from here, which is repeated many times: by the three, by the four iniquities, I will not throw myself back (Am 1,3). With this phrase it has been wanted to indicate all the iniquities, rather than to indicate that they were three or four.