[Verse 1]
Break the proverb: the fathers ate sour grapes.
Every soul is mine, the father's and the son's.
The soul that chooseth sin shall be the one to die.
The just restores the pledge, feeds the hungry, clothes the bare,
refuses robbery and usury, and judges truly.
[Refrain]
Turn, and live; turn, and live.
I have no pleasure in the death of him that dies.
Cast off the ruin; turn, and live.
[Verse 2]
A violent son shall answer for his blood.
A seeing son may mark his father's evil and refuse it.
The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father;
the father shall not bear the iniquity of the son.
The righteousness of the righteous rests upon him;
the wickedness of the wicked rests upon him.
[Interlude - 2 bars]
[Bridge]
If the wicked turns and keeps my statutes, he lives;
his former transgressions shall not be mentioned.
If the righteous leaves his way for iniquity,
he dies in the trespass that he chose.
[Verse 3]
You say the way of the LORD is not equal;
hear now, your own ways are weighed.
Repent, lest iniquity become your ruin.
Cast away transgressions; make a new heart and spirit.
O house of Israel, why will ye die?
[Post-Chorus]
The soul that sinneth, it shall die;
the soul that turns shall surely live.
[Outro]
I have no pleasure in the death of him that dies.
Wherefore turn yourselves,
and live.
About the passage
Ezekiel 18: The proverb cannot decide who lives
A proverb about sour grapes gives Israel a compact explanation for its condition: the fathers acted, and the children suffer the taste. Ezekiel answers by separating responsibility without pretending that generations have no effect on one another. A righteous father does not rescue a violent son, and a violent father does not condemn a son who sees his conduct and refuses it. The argument then moves inside a single life. Wickedness can be left, and righteousness can be abandoned, so neither past failure nor past achievement becomes permanent moral credit. Israel calls this unequal, but the chapter insists that the same possibility of turning governs both directions. It closes with judgment according to each person's ways, the demand for a new heart and spirit, and God's repeated declaration that he takes no pleasure in death.
