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Before God

A question, read by SIFT

What is original sin, and is every person born a sinner?

Read by SIFT · 7 Nov 2026 About this reading

What original sin is

DEVELOPMENT: written up by Claude from an OpenAI reading

Every verse in it is shown whole.

At the beginning, God gave the first man one command:

"But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." ()

Then came the first human disobedience:

"And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat." ()

God's judgment followed:

"And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;" ()
"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." ()
"And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:" ()
"So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." ()
"And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died." ()

Paul, writing to the believers at Rome, explains what that one act did to everyone who came after:

"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:" ()
"Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life." ()
"For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." ()

Notice how often Paul says "by one", "the offence of one", "one man's disobedience". Adam's act did not stay his own. Through it sin entered the world, death passed upon all, judgment came upon all to condemnation, and many were made sinners.

So, as these passages define it, original sin is Adam's disobedience and what it brought on humanity: sin, death, condemnation, and many being made sinners. Scripture teaches this. Romans 5:12-19 is the passage that explains it, and Genesis 2-3 records the event.

The name itself is not Scripture's phrase: a search of the Bible's words for "original sin" found no match. That is only about the label. The subject is plainly there, as the verses above show.

"Original" here means the human beginning. It does not mean Adam was the first being ever to sin, because Scripture says of the devil:

"He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil." ()

And the first human disobedience includes Eve's part as well as Adam's, as Genesis 3:6 shows and as Paul also says:

"For Adam was first formed, then Eve." ()
"And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." ()

Romans 5 makes its comparison through Adam.

Three things original sin is not

It is not sexual conception. Some say the first sin was the union of the man and woman. But the act God forbade was eating from the tree (Genesis 2:17), and the act recorded is eating (Genesis 3:6). Before any of this, Scripture had already described marriage:

"Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh." ()

It is not just a bad example that people later copy. If Adam affected others only by example, each person would begin a completely separate story. Romans 5:15-19 says the opposite: the many's death, condemnation and being made sinners are put down to the one man's offence. Paul says the same elsewhere:

"For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead." ()
"For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." ()

It is not only bodily death. Death is a real result of Adam's sin, but Romans 5:18 also says "condemnation" and Romans 5:19 says "made sinners". Those words cannot be shrunk down to "people die". Paul himself shows that the two are different things: a body can still be mortal where there is no condemnation.

"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." ()
"And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." ()

So condemnation in Romans 5 is a real judgment, not just a description of the body. And the other way round, the fact that someone's body will still die does not prove that person is condemned now.

Reading Romans 5 carefully

Romans 5:12-21 is an explanation and a comparison. It is not a command, and it does not speak about any particular baby. A few of its details matter:

  • Verse 12 ends "for that all have sinned". That clause cannot be dropped in favour of Adam's act alone.
  • Paul goes on:
"(For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law." ()
"Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come." ()

Sin was in the world before the law of Moses. Even without that law, death still reigned, and it reigned over people whose sin was not like Adam's transgression. That does not mean every person who died had personally done what Adam did. The passage does not mention infants here, and it would be adding to it to say that the people in verse 14 are infants.

  • Adam is "the figure of him that was to come", but the likeness has stated differences. The gift is bigger than the offence:
"But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many." ()
"And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification." ()

So no one can assume that both sides work in exactly the same way or reach exactly the same number of people.

Paul then refuses any idea that grace makes sin harmless:

"What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?" ()
"God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" ()
"Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof." ()

Adam's act really does cause what follows, but each person is still responsible for how they live.

Adam, the body, and mortality

1 Corinthians 15 sets Adam beside Christ again:

"But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming." ()
"So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption:" ()
"It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body." ()
"And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit." ()
"The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven." ()
"And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." ()

Verse 45 quotes the creation account:

"And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." ()

This confirms that all humanity shares in death through Adam. It does not call a newborn personally guilty. And the contrast between "natural" and "spiritual" does not say that the human body, as God made it, was itself a sinful act.

Genesis also says that Adam had a son in his own likeness:

"And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth:" ()

On its own, this verse does not say that the likeness includes inherited guilt.

How it was read, replayed

Here the replay stays still. This is the reading in brief; every step of it is listed below, in order.

"What is original sin, and is every person born a sinner?"
  • 22 minutes 39 seconds of reading, by an AI from OpenAI
  • 104 searches of Scripture
  • 2,723 verses opened, from 121 chapters
  • 10 false readings struck out
  • 5 conclusions handed on
  • then the answer, written by Claude in 6 minutes 9 seconds

The readings it struck out, and the verses each would break

  1. Adam was merely an example, or his effect is neutral bodily mortality with no condemnation or sinful condition. Romans 5:18-19 · Romans 8:1 · Romans 8:10
  2. Human birth necessarily makes Christ sinful, or Christ can be excluded by denying his humanity. Luke 1:35, 1 · John 3:5 · Galatians 4:4 · 1 Timothy 2:5
  3. Every unborn child has already personally performed evil deeds. Romans 9:11
  4. Every child bears any father's personal sin even when refusing it. Ezekiel 18:20 · Ezekiel 18:17
  5. Descendants can never suffer judgment or consequences involving their fathers. Numbers 14:31 · Numbers 14:33
  6. Lack of knowledge is always a sufficient proof of lack of guilt. Leviticus 5:17
  7. God's Spirit cannot act before bodily birth, or every child must be without the Spirit until later life. Luke 1:15
  8. Any righteous parent's standing automatically delivers the children. Ezekiel 14:20
  9. The Adam-Christ comparison proves final justification irrespective of receiving grace or believing. Romans 5:18 · Romans 5:17 · John 3:18
  10. The first human disobedience was sexual conception, or original means Adam was the first being of any kind ever to sin. Genesis 3:6 · Genesis 2:17 · 1 John 3:8

Verdicts

  1. The scriptural substance comes first.
  2. Humanity inherits a real predicament through Adam.
  3. The universal birth question needs its terms distinguished.
  4. Personal acts, attributed standing, and inherited consequences are distinguishable.
  5. The provision is grace through Christ.

The rest of the answer · Every step of the reading

The answer

How it was read, replayed from its own logs in the order it happened, at eight times its real speed (slower through its record, so each part can be read). It pauses once, at the reading's conclusions. The clock is the real time it happened.

What this reading did

  1. Scripture alone. By its words, and by the Greek and Hebrew behind them. The first search, original sin, found nothing.

  2. In its own context. Never a verse on its own: whole passages, and 91 whole chapters.

  3. False readings fall. It struck out 10 readings, each by a verse it would make false.

  4. Traceable. Every verse it quotes opens in its chapter, as the reading opened it.

The Greek and Hebrew word searches use data from STEP Bible.

I What original sin is

Is every person born a sinner?

The word "sinner" can mean different things, and Scripture answers each meaning differently. One flat "yes" or "no" would hide what Scripture actually says. Here is the short form, and each point is explained below.

  • Through Adam, every ordinary person shares the condition he brought: sin, death, condemnation, being made sinners. Human sinfulness reaches back to the beginning of life. It is not just a set of mistakes made later. Scripture teaches this.
  • No one is born having already done good or evil deeds, and no newborn ate the forbidden fruit. The claim that every unborn child has already personally done evil is not what Scripture teaches.
  • Jesus is the exception. He was truly born as a man, but he was born holy, and in him is no sin. The claim that every person who is born, Jesus included, begins with sin in himself is not what Scripture teaches.
  • Whether every ordinary newborn is personally to blame for Adam's own act. Scripture speaks to this, but doesn't settle it. The reasons are set out below.

Jesus: born of a woman, born holy

"And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." ()
"Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost." ()
"And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins." ()

Matthew points back to Isaiah's promise, which was read in its own chapter:

"Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." ()
"For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings." ()

He was truly human:

"But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law," ()
"For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;" ()

And he had no sin:

"And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin." ()
"For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." ()
"For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens;" ()
"For the law maketh men high priests which have infirmity; but the word of the oath, which was since the law, maketh the Son, who is consecrated for evermore." ()

The oath behind Hebrews 7 was checked in its psalm:

"The LORD hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek." ()
"For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." ()

So taking on human flesh does not by itself mean being personally sinful. Jesus is not someone who started out sinful and later overcame it. He was holy from his birth. 2 Corinthians 5:21 also shows that the word "sin" does not always mean the person's own deed: he was "made to be sin for us" while he "knew no sin". Denying that he was human does not get around this, because Galatians 4:4 and 1 Timothy 2:5 say he was.

These verses do not explain how he was kept from sin. They give no rule that sin passes only through a human father, and no genetic explanation, and none is offered here.

Jesus' exception shows that an unqualified "every person" is false. It does not by itself answer the question for everyone else. That answer rests on Romans 5 and the passages below.

Sinfulness reaches back to the beginning

Psalm 51 is a prayer of confession to God:

"For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me." ()
"Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest." ()
"Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." ()
"Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities." ()
"Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me." ()
"Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness." ()

The text that was read gave no title naming the occasion, so no occasion or author has been brought in from outside the text.

Verse 5 is real evidence about conception, and it should not be waved away as exaggeration. Coming after verse 4, it deepens the speaker's confession. He is not blaming his mother for what he did. It stands against the idea that his sin began only with one late, isolated act.

The verse also has limits:

  • Some read it as being only about his mother's fault. That fails, because it leaves out the first clause, "I was shapen in iniquity", which is about the speaker himself.
  • It can also be read as saying he was formed and conceived within the sin of a parent, or within a sinful human setting. That reading covers both clauses, and this verse alone cannot rule it out. Even so, the confession around it (verses 3-4 and 10) points towards hearing verse 5 as part of the speaker's own deep sinful condition.
  • The verse is one man's confession. It does not mention Adam, a father, a bodily process, or all children. On its own it does not show that every newborn has the same inward disposition, or that every conception carries the same personal blame for Adam's act. Romans 5 is what gives the universal link to Adam.

Ephesians 2 is Paul writing to the saints and faithful:

"And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;" ()
"Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:" ()
"Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others." ()

"We all" and "even as others": Paul includes himself with everyone. He is not describing a few unusually bad people. "By nature" says what they actually were, not just what others called them. So this is a real condition of wrath, not an insult. The same sentence also describes deeds they actually did ("fulfilling the desires"), so it cannot be read as if there were no deeds.

The passage does not name the moment of conception or mention Adam. It supports a real natural condition of need and wrath. On its own it does not explain how personal blame begins.

Psalm 58 speaks of the wicked from the womb:

"Yea, in heart ye work wickedness; ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth." ()
"The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies." ()
"Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear;" ()
"Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth: break out the great teeth of the young lions, O LORD." ()
"As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away: like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun." ()
"The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked." ()

This psalm speaks to and about unjust, violent people, sets them against the righteous, and uses pictures of serpents, lions, a snail and an untimely birth. The verse should not be dismissed just because it is poetry. It does give wickedness deep and early roots. But it is not saying that every newborn has literally spoken a lie, because its subject is "the wicked", set against "the righteous".

Isaiah 48 shows how "from the womb" can be used:

"Yea, thou heardest not; yea, thou knewest not; yea, from that time that thine ear was not opened: for I knew that thou wouldest deal very treacherously, and wast called a transgressor from the womb." ()

Here the LORD is speaking to a people, the house of Jacob (verses 1 and 12), about their treachery and stubbornness. So "from the womb" can describe the start of a people's history. That does not prove that the personal confession in Psalm 51 is only a figure of speech.

The heart. Scripture also shows that sin is inward, not only outward:

"And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." ()
"But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD." ()
"These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God." ()
"And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth." ()
"And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done." ()
"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" ()
"I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings." ()
"For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders," ()
"All these evil things come from within, and defile the man." ()

Genesis 8:21 says "from his youth", and that should not be changed to "from the exact moment of birth". None of these verses explains how sin is passed on in the body. Together they show that the trouble lies in the heart.

Put together: human sinfulness reaches back to human beginnings. It cannot be described as just a set of unrelated mistakes made later in life. Scripture teaches this. Psalm 51:5 is not, however, a sentence that names every newborn.

No one has done good or evil before birth

"(For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;)" ()

This is about Jacob and Esau before they were born. The pregnancy and the word to their mother were read in Genesis:

"And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger." ()

The love and hate words Paul quotes come from Malachi, where the LORD is speaking to Israel about Esau's heritage and Edom:

"I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob," ()
"And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness." ()

Romans 9:11 says plainly that the unborn twins had done neither good nor evil. So the claim that every unborn child has already personally done evil, Adam's eating included, is not what Scripture teaches. A newborn should not be told that they personally ate the fruit or have already committed evil deeds.

Two cautions stop this from being stretched too far:

  • Doing no deeds is not the same as being untouched by Adam. Romans 9:11 is about deeds. It does not say these children were free of every effect of Adam. Romans 5:18-19 still stands.
  • Not knowing is not always the same as not being guilty. Of Israel's children Moses said:

"Moreover your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, and your children, which in that day had no knowledge between good and evil, they shall go in thither, and unto them will I give it, and they shall possess it." ()

But the law also says:

"And if a soul sin, and commit any of these things which are forbidden to be done by the commandments of the LORD; though he wist it not, yet is he guilty, and shall bear his iniquity." ()

So the claim that lack of knowledge always proves lack of guilt is not what Scripture teaches. Notice the condition, though: that person did sin and commit a forbidden thing. That is different from someone who has done no deed at all. This verse does not give the twins in Romans 9:11 any deeds.

None of this decides where any particular child stands with God, and no verdict on Jacob, Esau or any present child is given here.

Each person answers for their own sin, and yet consequences reach children

The protection. God answered a proverb people were using in Israel:

"The word of the LORD came unto me again, saying," ()
"What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge?" ()

He then sets out three generations. A just man lives. His violent son dies. That son's own son sees his father's sins and does not do them:

"That hath taken off his hand from the poor, that hath not received usury nor increase, hath executed my judgments, hath walked in my statutes; he shall not die for the iniquity of his father, he shall surely live." ()
"The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him." ()
"But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die." ()
"Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, saith the Lord GOD. Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin." ()

The speaker here is God, so this is more than a human courtroom rule. These are "if" cases and stated principles. They do not say that anyone ever lived a whole life without sin. The same rule appears in the law, and again in God's promise of a new covenant:

"The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin." ()
"But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge." ()

Jeremiah 31 sits in a promise of rebuilding, a new covenant, God's law written inwardly, and forgiveness. It stands for personal responsibility and for God's provision. It does not say that people begin sinless.

So the rule that every child must bear any father's personal sin, even a child who refuses that sin, is not what Scripture teaches. Ezekiel 18:17-20 says the opposite.

The reverse is also true. A righteous parent does not automatically save the children:

"Though Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, as I live, saith the Lord GOD, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness." ()

The other side, which is just as real. Scripture also says that what fathers do can come upon their children:

"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;" ()
"And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments." ()
"Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto 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," ()
"Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation." ()

These warnings are tied to idolatry, and they speak of those who hate God and those who love him. Moses quoted the declaration in his prayer:

"The LORD is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation." ()

What followed shows different outcomes for different people. The rebellious generation died in the wilderness, but:

"But your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have despised." ()
"And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness." ()

The children were not given the sentence their fathers received. They entered the land. Yet they still carried years of wandering because of what their fathers did. Suffering the results of a parent's wrong is one thing, and being treated as the one who did it is another. The text itself keeps them apart, and Deuteronomy 1:34-40 repeats the same distinction.

Other passages say the same:

"Thou shewest lovingkindness unto thousands, and recompensest the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them: the Great, the Mighty God, the LORD of hosts, is his name," ()
"Great in counsel, and mighty in work: for thine eyes are open upon all the ways of the sons of men: to give every one according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings:" ()

Jeremiah puts the two side by side: what fathers did comes upon their children, and each person is given "according to his ways". The people he speaks of had their own deeds too.

"Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers; that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities." ()

This is judgment on the king of Babylon's line, to end that dynasty's power and violence.

There are harder cases still. When Korah rebelled, Moses and Aaron cried out:

"And they fell upon their faces, and said, O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and wilt thou be wroth with all the congregation?" ()
"So they gat up from the tabernacle of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, on every side: and Dathan and Abiram came out, and stood in the door of their tents, and their wives, and their sons, and their little children." ()
"And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods." ()

Their cry is a plea, a question asked in prayer. It is not God declaring that one person's sin can never bring wrath on others.

When Achan took what was forbidden, Scripture calls it Israel's trespass, and the judgment reached his household:

"But the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing: for Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed thing: and the anger of the LORD was kindled against the children of Israel." ()
"Israel hath sinned, and they have also transgressed my covenant which I commanded them: for they have even taken of the accursed thing, and have also stolen, and dissembled also, and they have put it even among their own stuff." ()
"And Joshua, and all Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver, and the garment, and the wedge of gold, and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had: and they brought them unto the valley of Achor." ()
"And Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us? the LORD shall trouble thee this day. And all Israel stoned him with stones, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned them with stones." ()

Later, the western tribes recalled it when they warned the eastern tribes, and dropped the accusation once they heard the explanation:

"Did not Achan the son of Zerah commit a trespass in the accursed thing, and wrath fell on all the congregation of Israel? and that man perished not alone in his iniquity." ()

These accounts do not give the ages or the deeds of every child involved. They do not say any child personally did Adam's act. Nothing is said here about where any of them now are.

Bearing the fathers' iniquity and confessing one's own sin also appear together:

"Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities." ()
"The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned!" ()
"And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them." ()
"If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me;" ()

Leviticus 26 goes on to covenant remembrance and promised mercy.

The word translated "iniquity" can include the burden that comes from wrongdoing. The same word stands behind "punishment" in Cain's complaint after God sentenced him for killing his brother:

"And Cain said unto the LORD, My punishment is greater than I can bear." ()

So in each passage, bearing the burden of a wrong has to be told apart from doing the wrong. This does not mean "iniquity" can be swapped for "punishment" everywhere. Psalm 51 and Ezekiel 18 are each read by their own setting.

Both sides stand. The claim that descendants can never suffer anything because of their ancestors is not what Scripture teaches, and it should not be used to explain Ezekiel 18. The claim that every child bears any father's personal wrongdoing is not what Scripture teaches either. These passages also rule out treating all inherited consequences as neutral bad luck. Neither side cancels Romans 5, where Adam's relation to all humanity is unique and stated in its own words.

Standing is not the same as doing

Scripture shows that God can count something to a person that the person did not earn by doing it:

"And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness." ()
"But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." ()
"Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works," ()
"Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin." ()
"Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression." ()
"But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead;" ()
"Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile." ()
"I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah." ()

In Romans 4 the reckoning is not the same as having done righteous works, and the condition of believing (verse 24) stays in place. Romans 4 is about Abraham and faith. It does not say every newborn is charged with Adam's act.

Paul gives an everyday example in his letter to Philemon about Onesimus:

"If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee ought, put that on mine account;" ()
"I Paul have written it with mine own hand, I will repay it: albeit I do not say to thee how thou owest unto me even thine own self besides." ()

Here a debt is put on someone who did not do the wrong. It is an "if" offer, not a statement that Onesimus certainly stole something. It shows a real difference between owing for a wrong and having done it. It does not show that Adam's relation to humanity works by the same kind of voluntary arrangement.

God's covenant with Abraham also included infants:

"Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee." ()
"And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed." ()
"And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant." ()

So a person's standing before God is not only a matter of their own conscious adult choices. This warning does not say any child actually stayed uncircumcised, and it is not about Adam's eating.

This is why the words "guilty", "sinner", "reckoned", "condemned" and "to blame" cannot be treated as interchangeable without reading each passage. Having a standing and having done a deed are different things.

The question Scripture leaves open

Some things here are not open. Adam's act really did cause what followed. Condemnation through Adam is stated plainly in Romans 5:18. "Made sinners" is stated in Romans 5:19. Human need is stated, and Christ's sinlessness is stated. None of these is in question.

What is open is one further step: whether the shared condemnation every ordinary person has through Adam must also mean that each newborn is personally to blame for Adam's own act, before any act of their own.

Two explanations were tested against every passage gathered.

The first explanation: the one man's disobedience making many sinners, set beside many being made righteous through Christ's obedience, includes each person's personal blame for Adam's deed. Romans 5:16, 18-19 give it strong positive support. Psalm 51:5 and Ephesians 2:3 support a sinful condition that reaches back to the beginning. Romans 4 and Philemon show that a standing can be counted to someone who did not do the deed, which makes this explanation possible. Romans 9:11 does not refute it, because Romans 9:11 is about deeds done, not standing.

This explanation must stay within limits. It cannot grow into a rule that a child is charged with any father's sins, which Ezekiel 18 forbids. It must keep Jesus' holy birth as the exception. It cannot conclude that no child can receive grace or the Spirit early (Luke 1:15). The step it still needs is to show that the shared condemnation is personal blame for Adam's own act, and not real liability under a judgment Adam caused. Romans 5 supports this explanation, but the comparison does not by itself choose between the two.

The second explanation: Adam brought on humanity a real judgment and a sinful and mortal condition, so that people are condemned and made sinners through him. Personal blame, though, is for a person's own wrongdoing, and it is distinct from that liability. Ezekiel 18's generations and its own-sin rule keep this possible. So do the twins who had done no deeds (Romans 9:11), the children in Numbers 14 who bore consequences without receiving their fathers' sentence, and this:

"But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed." ()
"Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." ()

This explanation must also stay within limits. It cannot shrink Adam's effect to bodily death or a bad social influence, because Romans 5:18-19 says "condemnation" and "made sinners". It cannot put off every effect of Adam until a person's first wrong act, because Psalm 51:5 and Ephesians 2:3 speak of sinful beginnings and natural need. It cannot claim that all guilt requires knowing it was wrong (Leviticus 5:17). It cannot treat all inherited judgment as mere circumstance (Numbers 16, Joshua 7, Leviticus 26, Lamentations 5). It must keep Christ's holy birth and the need of grace. The step it still needs is to show that the own-sin rules fully explain every infant's standing under Adam. Neither those rules nor the twins' lack of deeds gives that whole account, so this explanation cannot claim a revealed timetable for when everyone first becomes personally to blame.

Romans 5:12's "for that all have sinned" can be read either way. It can mean humanity's sharing in Adam's sin, or every person's own sin within the condition Adam brought. Under either reading, verses 18-19 give a real cause running from the one to the many, so Adam can never be treated as incidental. Without further argument, the clause also cannot be stretched to mean that every newborn performed Adam's act.

What changes and what doesn't. Whichever explanation is right, the answer stays the same on the main points. Humanity really does inherit a predicament through Adam. No newborn thereby personally ate the fruit. God judges each person's own ways. And the remedy is grace through Christ. The only thing that changes is whether a newborn should be called personally to blame for Adam's individual act. That matters to the question asked, which is why it has been worked through here instead of set aside.

Whether every ordinary newborn is personally to blame for Adam's own act: Scripture speaks to this, but doesn't settle it. The reason is in the texts. Romans 5 firmly establishes a shared condemnation and being made sinners through Adam. The passages gathered do not choose, as proven teaching, between counting that as each newborn's personal blame for Adam's deed and counting it as real liability under Adam's judgment kept distinct from blame for one's own acts. This is not because a favourite phrase is missing. It comes from the passages themselves, each with its limits. It must not be stretched into "Scripture does not say what Adam did to humanity". Scripture does say that, plainly, in Romans 5.

The passages read also do not set an age or moment when every person first becomes personally to blame. Romans 3:23 cannot date it, and Romans 7 was not used to supply one (both are explained below). So this answer gives no such timetable.

What God has provided

Scripture does not leave anyone with Adam alone.

"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." ()
"For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.)" ()
"Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:" ()
"That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord." ()
"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." ()
"Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:" ()
"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:" ()
"Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)" ()
"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:" ()
"Not of works, lest any man should boast." ()
"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." ()

Shutting everyone up under sin has a stated purpose, which is the promise:

"But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe." ()

That promise goes back to Abram:

"And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." ()

Bodily birth and family descent are not enough. Jesus told Nicodemus, who had asked whether a man could enter the womb a second time:

"Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." ()
"Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." ()
"That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." ()
"Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again." ()

He compared himself to the serpent Moses lifted up, and the account was read in Numbers:

"And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived." ()

That picture is about God's provision and receiving life. It is not about infant guilt.

"He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." ()

The Adam-Christ comparison in Romans 5 does not prove that everyone will finally be justified whether or not they receive grace or believe. Romans 5:17 speaks of "they which receive", Romans 5:1 of faith, and verses 15-16 mark the differences between the two sides. This does not weaken the "all men" on either side of Romans 5:18. Neither side may be erased.

The new birth is a different birth from bodily birth:

"Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." ()

The same letter also says:

"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." ()
"If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us." ()
"My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:" ()

Both must stand together. 1 John 3:9 is not used here to declare anyone sinless.

Christ's work is also described this way:

"Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." ()
"To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation." ()
"Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." ()

None of this is a verdict on whether any particular person has received that provision.

Children, the womb, and God's care

Scripture speaks warmly of God's care for children from the start:

"But thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's breasts." ()
"I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother's belly." ()
"For thou art my hope, O Lord GOD: thou art my trust from my youth." ()
"By thee have I been holden up from the womb: thou art he that took me out of my mother's bowels: my praise shall be continually of thee." ()
"For, lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb: and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines." ()
"For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb." ()
"For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy." ()

These verses do not say those children were free from all sin. They do rule out a rule that God's Spirit can never act before birth, or that every child must be without the Spirit until later life. Not every use of "womb" means being far from God.

Jesus welcomed children, infants included:

"Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven." ()
"But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven." ()
"And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them." ()
"And they brought unto him also infants, that he would touch them: but when his disciples saw it, they rebuked them." ()
"But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God." ()
"Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein." ()

No one may picture children as shut out from his welcome because of their birth. In Matthew 18 the point of the child's example is humility. These passages establish the welcome. They do not explain whether that welcome rests on grace or on the absence of inherited blame. They do not prove that bodily birth needs no grace or Spirit either, since John 3:3-7 stands against making that a general rule.

Paul calls the children of a believing parent holy:

"For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy." ()
"For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? or how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?" ()

In the same argument the unbelieving spouse is called "sanctified", yet whether that spouse will be saved is still a question. So "holy" here cannot simply be taken to mean sinless, automatically saved, or free of every effect of Adam.

Where any particular child stands with God: this isn't ours to know; here is what Scripture does reveal. Scripture reveals God's care from the womb, Jesus' welcome of infants, the Spirit's freedom to act even before birth, and grace through Christ. No verdict is given here on any child, living or dead.

Other passages that were weighed

"All have sinned"

"What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;" ()
"As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:" ()
"Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God." ()
"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;" ()
"Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law." ()

Paul's point is that Jews and Gentiles alike are under sin. No group can exempt itself. The scriptures he quotes were each read in their own psalm or chapter:

"They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one." ()
"There were they in great fear: for God is in the generation of the righteous." ()
"Every one of them is gone back: they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one." ()
"For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is very wickedness; their throat is an open sepulchre; they flatter with their tongue." ()
"They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent; adders' poison is under their lips. Selah." ()
"His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud: under his tongue is mischief and vanity." ()
"Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths." ()
"The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace." ()
"The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart, that there is no fear of God before his eyes." ()

In their settings these speak of corrupt thoughts and actions, and they also distinguish God's people and the righteous (as in Psalms 14:5). Paul's "all" cannot be narrowed to one nation. But Romans 3:23 does not say "at birth", and its list of deeds is not a claim that infants have already done each of them. The verse cannot by itself date when personal guilt begins.

Upright creation, and Job's friends

"For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not." ()
"Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions." ()

God made man upright, and people sought out inventions. That does not say every baby is born in the condition of the first creation. Genesis 2-3 and Romans 5 keep the beginning apart from sin's entry. It also stands against any claim that God's making of humanity was itself the wickedness. And being called "just" does not mean never sinning (Ecclesiastes 7:20). Romans 3:24 and 5:1 speak of being justified by grace and faith.

"There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil." ()
"And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause." ()

Job is called upright, but this does not say he never sinned. Job himself laments:

"Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble." ()
"Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one." ()

Two of his friends asked:

"What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?" ()
"How then can man be justified with God? or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?" ()

These are the speeches of Eliphaz and Bildad, not the LORD's own words, and God later rebuked them:

"And it was so, that after the LORD had spoken these words unto Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath." ()

So their words cannot settle the question about newborns on their own authority. Nor does the rebuke make every sentence they spoke false.

"Born in sins": the man born blind

"And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?" ()
"Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him." ()
"They answered and said unto him, Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us? And they cast him out." ()
"Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth." ()

"Altogether born in sins" is what the men who threw him out said. It is not Jesus defining every birth. Jesus rejected their idea that a particular sin caused this man's blindness. The chapter does not say the man or his parents had never sinned in any sense. It also gives no grounds for judging anyone's standing from a condition they were born with.

Sin and what a person has seen and heard

"If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin." ()
"If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father." ()
"But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause." ()

Here Jesus is speaking to his disciples about those who saw his works and hated him. The sin he names is their rejection, which had been exposed and left them without excuse. That cannot mean there was no sin of any kind before he came, because Romans 5:13 says sin was in the world before the law. It does show that responsibility depends on what a person has actually seen and heard, so all guilt cannot be treated as the same regardless of what happened. The quotation was checked in the psalms it comes from:

"Let not them that are mine enemies wrongfully rejoice over me: neither let them wink with the eye that hate me without a cause." ()
"They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head: they that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty: then I restored that which I took not away." ()
"O God, thou knowest my foolishness; and my sins are not hid from thee." ()

Both psalms are about being hated wrongfully. Applying one line of Psalm 69 to Christ does not make the psalmist's confession of sin in verse 5 into Christ's. 1 John 3:5 remains true. None of this declares infants wholly free from Adam.

Death does not measure guilt; each gives account

"And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things?" ()
"I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." ()
"So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God." ()

That statement draws on the LORD's oath:

"I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear." ()

A violent death does not prove someone was a worse sinner. Each person gives account to God. Neither statement removes Adam's role. In the same chapter Paul writes:

"And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin." ()

That is about eating and conscience. It is not a statement that an infant is constantly choosing unbelief.

A "father" passage that turned out to be about something else

"I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men:" ()

A search for son, iniquity and father found this verse, and the whole chapter was read. Here God, through Nathan, is promising David's house. "Father" means God, not a sinful parent passing on a deed, and the "if" is a warning, not a report that the son was born having done it. It says nothing about inherited human blame.

Passages read and set aside

  • "There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed." () This is a promise of a renewed, rejoicing Jerusalem. It does not explain where a newborn's guilt comes from, and it was not used as a timetable.
  • "I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance." () The parables answer complaints that Jesus received sinners. The "ninety and nine" are not said to be untouched by Adam or never to have sinned, and nothing about newborns rests on them.
  • "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." () This shows the Spirit is needed to receive God's things. Its quotations were checked in Isaiah 64:4 and Isaiah 40:13. "Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." () This describes the carnal mind, not something observed in a newborn. Neither verse was used to say an infant cannot receive any work of God, since Luke 1:15 stands against that.
  • "What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet." () "For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died." () "Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful." () "Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me." () For this speaker, the coming of the commandment mattered. The passage does not say this happens at one age for everyone, so it was not used to set an age. The commandment it quotes was read in its own chapter: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's." ()

How some key words were checked

Where a word mattered, its sense was taken from how Scripture itself uses the same original word in other places. A shared original word only showed where to look. It was never treated as a definition.

  • **"Sinners" ().** The same Greek word appears as "sinner" for the woman whose many sins Jesus forgave: "Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little." () It appears as "sinners of the Gentiles" in Galatians 2:15, followed straight away by everyone's need to be justified in Christ: "Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." () And it appears as "sinful" in Romans 7:13. Sharing a word does not prove the same reach or timing in every sentence.
  • **"Made" ().** The same Greek word is "appoint" in Acts 6:3 ("Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business." ()), "is" in James 4:4 ("Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God." ()), and "maketh" in Hebrews 7:28. On its own it does not mean a change in the body, and it does not mean imitation. In Romans 5 it is the surrounding comparison that shows the resulting condition of the many.
  • **"Nature" ().** All eleven places this Greek word is used were read. It describes what something is by origin or kind: "We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles," (); "Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods." (); "For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree?" (); "For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind:" (). It can describe good as well: "For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:" (). It also appears here: "Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?" (); and here: "Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." (). So "nature" does not always mean moral evil, and it does not always mean a habit someone has picked up. Ephesians 2:3 gives its own moral content: "children of wrath", with fleshly desires fulfilled. A "nature" statement does not by itself name the time of birth or any bodily material.
  • **"Sin" and "conceive" ().** The Hebrew word for "sin" here is also the word in the own-sin rule of Deuteronomy 24:16. So the word alone does not say whether the sin is a parent's or one's own. The word for "conceive" is used of flocks ("And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ringstraked, speckled, and spotted." ()) and elsewhere of heat or warmth: "Lest the avenger of the blood pursue the slayer, while his heart is hot, and overtake him, because the way is long, and slay him; whereas he was not worthy of death, inasmuch as he hated him not in time past." (); "Now king David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat." (); "Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone?" (); "Then set it empty upon the coals thereof, that the brass of it may be hot, and may burn, and that the filthiness of it may be molten in it, that the scum of it may be consumed." (). In Psalm 51, conception is shown by "my mother" and the matching clause, not by carrying the "heat" sense across. None of this turns Psalm 51 into a technical account of a sinful substance. "Iniquity" in that verse is read through the confession around it. Its word was checked in Genesis 4:13 and Genesis 15:16, but not in all of its uses.
  • **"Sin" and "transgression of the law" ().** "Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law." () The word for "transgression of the law" is also "iniquity" and "unrighteousness", always as the moral opposite of righteousness. "All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death." () The word for "sin" also stands behind "sinful" in "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:" (), and behind "offence" in "Have I committed an offence in abasing myself that ye might be exalted, because I have preached to you the gospel of God freely?" (). That second verse is a rhetorical question, not an admission. Romans 5-8 speaks of sin entering, reigning, dwelling and enslaving. So Scripture uses "sin" both for wrong acts and for a power or condition at work. That does not allow the claim that a newborn has personally done every act.
  • **"Condemnation" ().** This Greek word appears in only three places, Romans 5:16, 5:18 and 8:1, and all three were read. Set against "justification" in Romans 5 and "no condemnation" in Romans 8, it is a judicial word: a verdict, not a description of the body.
  • **"Imputed" ().** This Greek word appears only in Romans 5:13 and Philemon 1:18, and both were read (Philemon is explained above). A related word for "counted" or "reckoned" was followed through Romans 2-4, 6, 8-9 and 14 and 2 Corinthians 5 and 11, including "For I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles." () and "I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean." (). That word means an assessment or reckoning whose content comes from each setting. The word alone does not prove that Adam's blame is transferred.

What this reading did not check, and what it does not claim

  • The reading did not open the whole Bible. Some search results were listed but not read, and some longer result lists were not shown in full. Nothing here claims that Scripture says nothing more on this subject. Only two claims about completeness are made: all three uses of the word for "condemnation" and all eleven uses of the word for "nature" were read, and a search of the Bible's words for "original sin" found no match.
  • The open question above is open because of what the passages positively say and where they stop. It is not open because a phrase was missing.
  • No way of passing sin on was checked or claimed, whether through the father, genes, the creation of the soul, or a parent's sex.
  • No age or moment when every person first becomes personally to blame was established, and none is given.
  • No verdict is given on whether any particular child or person, living or dead, is saved. That is God's alone.
  • Going further either way would claim more than the reading found. That means saying all newborns are personally to blame for Adam's act, or saying all newborns are entirely free of every sinful condition from Adam.

Every step of the reading

Everything the replay shows, as plain text, in the order it happened. Times are from the moment the reading began.

Every search, in order (104)
  1. words original sin 0 found
  2. all of born + sin 2 found
  3. words sinner 21 found
  4. all of conceived + sin 1 found
  5. all of son + iniquity + father 3 found
  6. words by nature 6 found
  7. all of womb + wicked 1 found
  8. all of Adam + sin 0 found
  9. words sinners 46 found
  10. words Adam 27 found
  11. words conceive 13 found
  12. word family nature 14 found
  13. word family sinner 537 found
  14. words all have sinned 2 found
  15. all of children + knowledge 6 found
  16. all of youth + evil 5 found
  17. all of born + clean 2 found
  18. original word G5449 11 found nature 10 · natural 2 · kind 1 · mankind 1
  19. original word G268 45 found sinners 31 · sinner 12 · sinful 4
  20. original word H3179 9 found conceive 4 · conceived 2 · hot 2 · heat 1 · warm 1
  21. original word G2525 21 found made 6 · ruler 6 · make 4 · is 2 · ordained 2 · appoint 1 · conducted 1 · maketh 1 · ordain 1 · set 1 · shall 1
  22. original word H2399 33 found sin 22 · sins 8 · faults 1 · grievously 1 · offences 1
  23. words fear of God 8 found
  24. words none that doeth good 5 found
  25. words born of the flesh 1 found
  26. words open sepulchre 3 found
  27. all of children + holy 25 found
  28. words little children 20 found
  29. words poison of asps 2 found
  30. words priest for ever 5 found
  31. all of fathers + iniquity + children 6 found
  32. words upright 66 found
  33. words Thou shalt not covet 3 found
  34. all of feet + swift + blood 1 found
  35. words way of peace 3 found
  36. all of mouth + cursing 4 found
  37. words iniquity of the fathers 5 found
  38. all of dead + sin 7 found
  39. all of sin + imputed 1 found
  40. words not spoken 14 found
  41. words made man upright 1 found
  42. words sinful flesh 1 found
  43. all of children + born + evil 1 found
  44. words asps 4 found
  45. all of womb + trust 0 found
  46. words born in sins 1 found
  47. words natural man 1 found
  48. all of womb + transgressor 1 found
  49. all of heart + evil 33 found
  50. all of heart + deceitful 1 found
  51. all of sin + unrighteousness 2 found
  52. words shapen 1 found
  53. all of sin + transgression 7 found
  54. all of without + sin 25 found
  55. words account 17 found
  56. words from the womb 16 found
  57. words birth 15 found
  58. original word H2342 58 found pain 6 · formed 5 · forth 4 · pained 4 · calve 2 · fear 2 · grieved 2 · grievous 2 · shaketh 2 · stayed 2 · travailed 2 · tremble 2 · trembled 2 · wounded 2 · abide 1 · afraid 1 · anguish 1 · away 1 · bare 1 · carefully 1 · child 1 · dance 1 · danced 1 · great 1 · grievously 1 · hope 1 · look 1 · made 1 · patiently 1 · rest 1 · shapen 1 · sorrow 1 · sorrowful 1 · tarried 1 · travail 1 · travaileth 1 · trust 1
  59. original word G458 13 found iniquity 9 · iniquities 2 · law 2 · transgresseth 1 · unrighteousness 1 · will 1
  60. original word G2631 3 found condemnation 3
  61. original word G266 151 found sin 94 · sins 78 · offence 1 · sinful 1
  62. words eyes shall 20 found
  63. all of serpent + wilderness 2 found
  64. words no sin 9 found
  65. original word G266 (page 4) 151 found sin 94 · sins 78 · offence 1 · sinful 1
  66. original word G266 (page 2) 151 found sin 94 · sins 78 · offence 1 · sinful 1
  67. original word G266 (page 3) 151 found sin 94 · sins 78 · offence 1 · sinful 1
  68. words Jacob have I loved 1 found
  69. all of serpent + pole 2 found
  70. words neither have entered 1 found
  71. words for evermore 22 found
  72. words elder shall serve 2 found
  73. words who hath known the mind 2 found
  74. words every imagination 1 found
  75. words adders 1 found
  76. all of eye + prepared + God 2 found
  77. words natural 12 found
  78. all of sin + flesh 9 found
  79. words loved Jacob 2 found
  80. all of Spirit + counsellor 1 found
  81. words imputed 8 found
  82. words in sin 2 found
  83. all of fathers + sinned 6 found
  84. words guilt 2 found
  85. words sour grapes 1 found
  86. original word G266 (page 2) 151 found sin 94 · sins 78 · offence 1 · sinful 1
  87. original word G266 (page 3) 151 found sin 94 · sins 78 · offence 1 · sinful 1
  88. words grapes 33 found
  89. words guilty 26 found
  90. original word G1677 2 found imputed 1 · is 1 · on 1 · put 1
  91. word family imputed 164 found
  92. words iniquities of our fathers 1 found
  93. words father of many nations 4 found
  94. words all nations be blessed 1 found
  95. words hated me without a cause 1 found
  96. words sour grape 3 found
  97. original word G3049 40 found think 7 · imputed 5 · counted 4 · reckoned 4 · accounted 2 · let 2 · reckon 2 · suppose 2 · account 1 · accounting 1 · conclude 1 · count 1 · despised 1 · esteemeth 1 · him 1 · impute 1 · imputeth 1 · imputing 1 · is 1 · it 1 · laid 1 · may 1 · numbered 1 · reasoned 1 · shall 1 · thinketh 1 · thou 1 · thought 1 · will 1
  98. words without a cause 8 found
  99. words every knee 3 found
  100. all of nations + blessed + thee 2 found
  101. all of families + blessed 2 found
  102. words punishment 23 found
  103. original word H5771 213 found iniquity 172 · iniquities 49 · punishment 4 · fault 2 · mischief 1 · punishments 1 · sin 1
  104. words Achan 6 found
Every time it opened Scripture (14 times, 2,723 verses)
  1. Romans 5 21 Romans 6 23 Psalms 51 19 Psalms 58 11 Ezekiel 18 32 Ephesians 1 23 Ephesians 2 22 John 9 41 1 John 3 24 James 1 27 Galatians 2 21 Hebrews 7 28 292 verses, 292 new
  2. Genesis 2 25 Genesis 3 24 Genesis 4 26 Genesis 5 32 Genesis 8 22 Romans 1 32 Romans 2 29 Romans 3 31 Romans 7 25 Romans 11 36 1 Corinthians 15 58 Deuteronomy 1 46 Job 14 22 Job 15 35 Job 25 6 Luke 1:26–56 31 Isaiah 7 25 505 verses, 505 new
  3. Romans 1 32 Romans 2 29 Romans 3 31 Romans 7 25 Romans 11 36 1 Corinthians 15 58 211 verses, 0 new
  4. Psalms 5 12 Psalms 10 18 Psalms 14 7 Psalms 36 12 Psalms 53 6 Psalms 110 7 Psalms 140 13 Isaiah 59 21 Exodus 20 26 Exodus 34:1–17 17 Romans 8 39 Romans 9 33 Ecclesiastes 7 29 Job 42 17 1 Corinthians 7:1–24 24 John 3 36 Matthew 18:1–14 14 Matthew 19:1–15 15 Luke 18:9–17 9 355 verses, 355 new
  5. Genesis 6 22 Jeremiah 17 27 Isaiah 48 22 Psalms 22 31 Psalms 71 24 Luke 1:1–25 25 Galatians 4:1–20 20 James 3 18 James 4 17 2 Peter 1 21 1 Corinthians 2 16 1 Corinthians 11:1–16 16 Hebrews 4 16 1 John 1 10 1 John 2 29 1 John 5 21 Mark 7:1–23 23 Genesis 41:1–14 14 Ecclesiastes 10:1–7 7 Acts 6:1–7 7 Titus 2 15 2 Corinthians 6 18 419 verses, 419 new
  6. James 3 18 James 4 17 2 Peter 1 21 1 Corinthians 2 16 Deuteronomy 24 22 Numbers 14 45 Jeremiah 32:16–44 29 Genesis 30:25–43 19 Genesis 31:1–16 16 Deuteronomy 19:1–13 13 1 Kings 1:1–4 4 Ecclesiastes 4:7–12 6 Isaiah 51:1–8 8 234 verses, 162 new
  7. Genesis 25:19–34 16 Malachi 1 14 Isaiah 64 12 Isaiah 40 31 Numbers 21:1–9 9 2 Corinthians 5 21 2 Corinthians 11:1–15 15 Matthew 1 25 Luke 7:29–50 22 Luke 15 32 Isaiah 65 25 1 Timothy 2 15 Job 1 22 Job 2 13 Mark 10:1–16 16 Judges 13 25 Isaiah 14:1–27 27 Deuteronomy 5:1–22 22 Ezekiel 24:1–14 14 Psalms 90 17 393 verses, 393 new
  8. Matthew 1 25 Luke 7:29–50 22 Luke 15 32 Isaiah 65 25 1 Timothy 2 15 Job 1 22 Job 2 13 154 verses, 0 new
  9. Romans 4 25 Psalms 32 11 Galatians 3 29 John 15 27 Luke 13:1–9 9 Numbers 16 50 Lamentations 5 22 2 Samuel 7 29 Jeremiah 31:23–40 18 220 verses, 220 new
  10. John 15 27 Galatians 3 29 Philemon 1 25 Genesis 15 21 Romans 14 23 Leviticus 4 35 Leviticus 5 19 179 verses, 123 new
  11. Genesis 17 27 Jeremiah 31:23–40 18 Philemon 1:15–25 11 56 verses, 27 new
  12. Psalms 35 28 Psalms 69 36 Isaiah 45 25 Genesis 12:1–9 9 Leviticus 5:14–19 6 104 verses, 98 new
  13. Leviticus 26 46 Joshua 22 34 Ezekiel 14 23 103 verses, 103 new
  14. Joshua 7 26 26 verses, 26 new
The reader's own notes (8)
  1. The reading will open the two SIFT files in full, then gather and check Scripture through the permitted tools. RECORD.md will be completed and read back before HANDOFF.md is written.
  2. The first passages put two claims alongside each other: Romans 5 connects condemnation and being made sinners with one man’s disobedience; Ezekiel 18 says the son does not bear the father’s iniquity. Both need to be kept in view while checking what the birth passages actually assert.
  3. The birth passages require a distinction between a condition present from the beginning and deeds personally committed. The searches have also found passages about children who had done neither good nor evil, children without knowledge of good and evil, and Christ’s holy birth. These will test the reach of “every person.”
  4. The reading supports Adam’s disobedience as the source of a condition affecting humanity, and it rules out treating birth as proof of deeds personally committed. The remaining question is narrower: how Adam’s condemnation relates to a newborn’s personal guilt. The record will distinguish what the passages state from what each proposed explanation adds.
  5. The working will now be written to /Users/Shared/before-god-sift-library-2026-11-03/runs/original-sin/out/RECORD.md, including the search hits left unread and the limits of each conclusion. Its read-back will check for passages that could qualify the reasoning before the hand-off is written.
  6. The read-back found more checks needed around imputation, judgment affecting a household, and personal responsibility. Those passages are being opened now. The record will also make clearer that Romans 5 asserts condemnation through Adam, while Romans 9’s statement about deeds does not by itself resolve inherited liability.
  7. The read-back revisions are in RECORD.md. They strengthen the evidence for shared judgment through Adam and for the distinction between liability and a deed personally performed. They also rule out treating lack of knowledge as a universal exemption from guilt. The hand-off will preserve these corrections.
  8. Completed RECORD.md and HANDOFF.md, including the read-back revisions and quotation cross-check.
What its record and its hand-off say, in their order

The person's words and the scope

"What is original sin, and is every person born a sinner?"

This is a question, not a disclosed belief or a report about a particular child. Both parts require an answer. The words every person require attention to Christ; born requires attention to the beginning of life, rather than only to later conduct; sinner may describe personal wrongdoing or humanity's condition through Adam. No personal circumstance needs to be supplied to make these distinctions.

The reading opened these two files, whole, together, before Scripture: /Users/Shared/before-god-sift-library-2026-11-03/runs/original-sin/inputs/SIFT-v3-CORE.md and /Users/Shared/before-god-sift-library-2026-11-03/runs/original-sin/inputs/SIFT-v3-POLICY.md. This record is /Users/Shared/before-god-sift-library-2026-11-03/runs/original-sin/out/RECORD.md. The intended last output is /Users/Shared/before-god-sift-library-2026-11-03/runs/original-sin/out/HANDOFF.md. No other file was opened as a source. Scripture came only from the permitted KJV tool. Searches and word numbers supplied locations, not definitions. No outside explanation was used. The supplied hashes were not independently recomputed because the permitted commands did not include a hash command.

From its hand-off to the writer

Their words

"What is original sin, and is every person born a sinner?"

This is a question about the meaning of original sin and the universal claim about birth. No personal belief, pregnancy, bereavement, or particular child's circumstances were disclosed. The answer must address ordinary humanity, rather than settling the question merely by mentioning Christ's exception. It must nevertheless preserve that exception because the question says every person. No question about circumstances is needed for the distinctions reached in the record.

This hand-off follows the completed RECORD.md, including its read-back revisions. It is material for the answer, not the answer itself. The writer must preserve the difference between stated facts, supported synthesis, and the further explanation left open. No claim about a particular child's present standing or destination is authorized.

Hard passages

Romans 5:12-19 is the strongest evidence for an inherited standing and must be stated at full strength. Paul explains humanity through Adam in comparison with life through Christ. The repeated one-to-many cause cannot become mere imitation. The comparison also does not say that every person performed Adam's particular transgression. Its statement about death before Moses and its distinction concerning imputation must both be retained.

"(For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law." ()
"Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come." ()
"And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification." ()

Psalms 51:5 is genuine evidence about conception. It belongs to the speaker's confession and request for inward cleansing, not a detached accusation against his mother. The read-back corrected an overstatement: formation and conception within a sinful parental or human setting remains a possible reading of both clauses. The confession favours the speaker's own deep sinful predicament; the verse alone does not specify Adam's act being charged to every newborn or an identical inward disposition in each newborn. It must neither be dismissed as exaggeration nor expanded into a universal sentence it does not contain.

"For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me." ()
"Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me." ()

Psalms 58:3 speaks of the wicked from the womb. The psalm addresses unjust and violent people, contrasts them with the righteous, and uses explicit comparisons. It gives wickedness deep roots; it does not state that every newborn has literally uttered a lie. Isaiah 48 provides a further contextual check: its womb language addresses a people identified as Jacob, rather than describing every pregnancy.

"The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies." ()
"The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked." ()
"Yea, thou heardest not; yea, thou knewest not; yea, from that time that thine ear was not opened: for I knew that thou wouldest deal very treacherously, and wast called a transgressor from the womb." ()

Ephesians 2:1-10 asserts a real natural condition of wrath alongside actual disobedient conduct. Nature cannot be reduced to an insult. Its original-word uses were checked under other English renderings, including natural branches and kind/mankind. The sentence includes Paul's we all and even as others. It supports the shared need; it does not independently identify every newborn's personal blame for Adam's deed. Its actual deeds and its natural condition must both remain in the explanation.

"And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;" ()
"Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:" ()

Romans 3:23 does not date personal guilt to birth. Its setting indicts Jews and Gentiles alike. The quoted scriptural sources were found and read whole in their settings as recorded. They concern corruption and wrongdoing, and also distinguish God's people and righteous people. Their application cannot be reduced to one ethnic group; neither can the conduct described be made a list of deeds already performed by every infant.

"What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;" ()
"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;" ()

Ezekiel 18 and the children passages are the strongest checks against unrestricted inherited personal blame. Ezekiel gives actual cases of different conduct across generations and God judging each according to ways. Deuteronomy 1 describes children lacking knowledge between good and evil and receiving a different promised outcome from the rebellious adults. Neither text states that these children have no connection with Adam. Leviticus 5:17 above prevents making their lack of knowledge a universal moral exemption. Romans 9:11 above establishes lack of deeds in its own setting, not a complete theory of all newborn standing.

"Moreover your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, and your children, which in that day had no knowledge between good and evil, they shall go in thither, and unto them will I give it, and they shall possess it." ()

God's visitation on generations is equally real. Exodus 20's idolatry warning and Exodus 34's proclamation were read, including the source quoted in Numbers 14. Jeremiah 32 places ancestral recompense and judgment according to each person's ways side by side. Isaiah 14 concerns ending Babylon's oppressive dynasty. These texts cannot become a proof that every newborn personally performed an ancestor's deed, or be made unreal by Ezekiel's own-sin rule.

"Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation." ()
"Thou shewest lovingkindness unto thousands, and recompensest the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them: the Great, the Mighty God, the LORD of hosts, is his name," ()
"Great in counsel, and mighty in work: for thine eyes are open upon all the ways of the sons of men: to give every one according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings:" ()
"Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers; that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities." ()

Children's welcome and holiness must not be suppressed. Jesus receives children, including infants in Luke, and makes childlike reception an example. Matthew 18 identifies humility as the point of its example. This welcome neither excludes grace nor proves that bodily birth suffices. In 1 Corinthians 7 the unbelieving spouse is called sanctified while the prospect of saving the spouse remains a question. Thus holy cannot be equated without argument with personal sinlessness or automatic salvation.

"Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven." ()
"And they brought unto him also infants, that he would touch them: but when his disciples saw it, they rebuked them." ()
"But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God." ()
"For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy." ()
"For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? or how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?" ()

John 9:34 is hostile speech, not Jesus defining every birth. The chapter concerns the proposed cause of a particular congenital blindness. Jesus rejects that proposed cause, while later exposing his opponents' remaining sin. No diagnosis of anyone's moral standing from a birth impairment is authorized.

"Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him." ()
"They answered and said unto him, Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us? And they cast him out." ()

Upright creation and righteous descriptions do not prove a sinless biological beginning for everyone. Ecclesiastes puts upright creation alongside the human pursuit of inventions and the fact that just people sin. Job's uprightness is affirmed in the narrative, but his friends' birth/uncleanness questions cannot independently settle the matter, particularly in light of God's rebuke. The record did not call every sentence spoken by those friends false.

"Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions." ()
"For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not." ()
"What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?" ()
"How then can man be justified with God? or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?" ()
"And it was so, that after the LORD had spoken these words unto Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath." ()
Controls added or corrected by the read-back

These passages and their changes must be carried into the answer where their respective distinctions are made. They must not disappear merely because the final verdict did not change.

Reckoning need not mean personally performing the deed. Romans 4 and its sources in Psalms 32, Genesis 15 and 17 strengthen the evidence for attributed standing without earned works. Philemon makes liability distinct from performing the wrong particularly concrete. This supports taking Romans 5's shared standing seriously, while not proving that Adam's relation works by the identical arrangement of Paul's conditional offer. Faith's condition in Romans 4 remains intact. Genesis 17's covenant warning about a man child also prevents reducing all standing to conscious adult choice; it does not define inherited blame for Adam.

"And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness." ()
"Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee." ()
"And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant." ()
"Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile." ()
"But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." ()
"But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead;" ()
"If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee ought, put that on mine account;" ()

The shared predicament has the stated purpose of God's promised provision through faith. Galatians 3:22 adds positive support, rather than a new at-birth timing statement. The promise referred to in its setting was checked in Genesis 12, and its belief/reckoning statement in Genesis 15. Neither source defines infant culpability.

"But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe." ()
"And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." ()

Personal responsibility must stand alongside genuine corporate judgment. Numbers 16 involves households and little children in the setting of rebellion and destruction. Moses and Aaron's question is an intercession, not a divine rule that one person's sin can never bring wrath on others. Joshua 22's warning was checked in Joshua 7: the narrative calls the community's trespass Achan's act and records wrath beyond him. These additions rule out treating all inherited consequences as merely neutral circumstances. They do not disclose every child's deeds or final standing, nor call every child a personal performer of Adam's act.

"And they fell upon their faces, and said, O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and wilt thou be wroth with all the congregation?" ()
"So they gat up from the tabernacle of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, on every side: and Dathan and Abiram came out, and stood in the door of their tents, and their wives, and their sons, and their little children." ()
"But the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing: for Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed thing: and the anger of the LORD was kindled against the children of Israel." ()
"Did not Achan the son of Zerah commit a trespass in the accursed thing, and wrath fell on all the congregation of Israel? and that man perished not alone in his iniquity." ()

Bearing fathers' iniquities and confessing one's own sin occur together. Lamentations 5 and Leviticus 26 strengthen the ancestral consequences side; neither cancels Ezekiel 18. Ezekiel 14 above prevents the opposite assumption of automatically inherited deliverance. The H5771 check also found punishment in Cain's complaint in Genesis 4:13: the burden resulting from wrongdoing must be distinguished in each context from the performance of the wrong. This is a contextual word check, not a license to substitute punishment for every occurrence of iniquity.

"Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities." ()
"The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned!" ()
"And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them." ()
"And Cain said unto the LORD, My punishment is greater than I can bear." ()

Another direct own-iniquity statement reinforces the protection against unrestricted parental blame. Jeremiah 31 was read in its future rebuilding/new-covenant setting, retaining both personal responsibility and God's inward provision. It is not a universal statement about a sinless biological origin.

"But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge." ()

Revelation and response matter to the sin described. John 15 concerns the opponents' seen-and-hated rejection of Jesus and his Father. Making its counterfactual deny all prior sin of any kind would contradict Romans 5:13 above. Its quotation was checked in Psalms 35 and 69, concerning wrongful hatred; the quotation's application cannot transfer the psalmist's confession of sin to Christ. These checks qualify an undifferentiated claim about guilt, without declaring infants wholly free from Adam.

"If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin." ()
"If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father." ()
"Let not them that are mine enemies wrongfully rejoice over me: neither let them wink with the eye that hate me without a cause." ()
"They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head: they that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty: then I restored that which I took not away." ()

Death does not establish greater personal blame; each gives account to God. Luke 13 denies the proposed inference from violent death while requiring repentance. Romans 14 supplies personal account in its setting of food, days, and mutual judgment, supported by the quotation checked in Isaiah 45. The food-and-conscience statement in Romans 14:23 is not a report of every infant continually performing chosen unbelief.

"And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things?" ()
"I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." ()
"So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God." ()
"I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear." ()

The father/son hit in 2 Samuel 7 supplies no hereditary-blame definition. God through Nathan promises David's house and conditionally warns of chastening if the son commits iniquity. Father there refers to God, not to a sinful parent transferring a deed. This was read and set aside for this particular claim; an if was not turned into a report that the contemplated sin had already occurred at birth.

"I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men:" ()

The added lexical controls in Romans 3-4, 6 and 14, 2 Corinthians 5 and 11, Philemon, and Genesis 4 do not impose one technical definition on every indexed word. The record's full verses and settings govern each use. In particular, standing and personal performance cannot simply be equated; neither can reckoning, condemnation, and personal blame be treated as interchangeable without the contextual argument.

Ruled out

Adam was merely an example, or his effect is neutral bodily mortality with no condemnation or sinful condition. This makes Romans 5:18-19, quoted above, false. Mortality does not exhaust the words condemnation and made sinners. Nor does remaining bodily mortality alone establish a person's current condemnation: the same letter distinguishes the following conditions.

"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." ()
"And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." ()

Human birth necessarily makes Christ sinful, or Christ can be excluded by denying his humanity. Luke 1:35, 1 John 3:5, and Galatians 4:4 above oppose the first claim. The following also opposes the second.

"For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;" ()

Every unborn child has already personally performed evil deeds. Romans 9:11 above makes this universal claim false. It does not answer every question about attributed standing. The answer must not conflate these two claims.

Every child bears any father's personal sin even when refusing it. Ezekiel 18:20 above makes that rule false. The surrounding case states the son's different conduct and outcome explicitly.

"That hath taken off his hand from the poor, that hath not received usury nor increase, hath executed my judgments, hath walked in my statutes; he shall not die for the iniquity of his father, he shall surely live." ()

Descendants can never suffer judgment or consequences involving their fathers. This is false; it must not be used as the explanation of Ezekiel 18. The children were promised entry into the land while bearing wilderness years. The harder household judgments are addressed below.

"But your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have despised." ()
"And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness." ()

Lack of knowledge is always a sufficient proof of lack of guilt. The read-back ruled this out. The law's condition is that the person sinned and committed a forbidden thing, even without knowing. This is different from saying that a person performed no deed at all.

"And if a soul sin, and commit any of these things which are forbidden to be done by the commandments of the LORD; though he wist it not, yet is he guilty, and shall bear his iniquity." ()

God's Spirit cannot act before bodily birth, or every child must be without the Spirit until later life. This is false. The statement about John does not say that John never sinned; it does prevent the proposed universal restriction.

"For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb." ()

Any righteous parent's standing automatically delivers the children. The read-back added a direct contrary statement. It must not be used to judge any particular family's final standing.

"Though Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, as I live, saith the Lord GOD, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness." ()

The Adam-Christ comparison proves final justification irrespective of receiving grace or believing. The comparison itself marks differences, and its setting includes the following conditions. Neither side of Romans 5:18 may simply be erased to avoid the comparison.

"For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.)" ()
"He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." ()

The first human disobedience was sexual conception, or original means Adam was the first being of any kind ever to sin. The first claim substitutes an act for the forbidden eating in Genesis 3:6. The second exceeds the human comparison and contradicts the description of the devil's sin. Neither is needed to define the subject.

"But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." ()
"He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil." ()

Verdicts

The scriptural substance comes first. Adam's disobedience brought sin, death, condemnation, and the many being made sinners. Scripture teaches this. Original sin may be defined here as that first human disobedience and the sinful condition and judgment it brought upon humanity. The exact phrase original sin returned no search hit; this is not silence about its subject. The answer should explain the substance before discussing the label.

"And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat." ()
"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:" ()
"Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life." ()
"For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." ()

Humanity inherits a real predicament through Adam. The answer may affirm this shared sinful and mortal condition, with its real judgment. It must not say that ordinary human lives begin wholly independent of Adam, or that the only problem is copying a poor example later. The conception and nature passages support human sinfulness reaching to beginnings. The record did not derive from them a separate universal statement about an identical inward disposition in every newborn, irrespective of God's gracious action.

"For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." ()
"Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." ()
"Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others." ()

The universal birth question needs its terms distinguished. Every person without exception cannot include Jesus as sinful: he was born holy and has no sin. For ordinary humanity, the shared Adamic condition is affirmed. That condition must be distinguished from a newborn's personally having performed Adam's eating, and from the further explanation that every newborn is personally blameworthy for Adam's individual deed. Shared condemnation is stated; that further explanation was not established to the exclusion of the alternative examined in the record. The answer must not turn this qualification into a denial of condemnation through Adam.

"And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." ()
"And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin." ()
"But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law," ()

Personal acts, attributed standing, and inherited consequences are distinguishable. The unborn twins had done neither good nor evil; this does not by itself establish freedom from every Adamic effect. Ezekiel protects the son who refuses his father's sins; this does not by itself remove Adam's unique relation to humanity in Romans 5. The read-back strengthened the distinction between having performed a deed and bearing a liability, so the lack-of-deeds text must not be offered as a complete refutation of every account of inherited liability.

"(For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;)" ()
"The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him." ()

The provision is grace through Christ. Bodily birth and descent are not presented as sufficient for entering God's kingdom. The answer must state the provision rather than leave the person with Adam alone. This is not a verdict about whether any particular child has received that provision.

"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:" ()
"Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." ()
"That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." ()

Open

The record leaves open the further explanation of personal blame for Adam's individual deed in every ordinary newborn. It does not leave open Adamic causation, condemnation, being made sinners, human need, or Christ's sinlessness.

One account understands the one man's disobedience making the many sinners, and its condemnation parallel to righteousness through Christ, as including personal blame for Adam's deed before the child's own deeds. Romans 5:16,18-19 above positively supports that account. Romans 4's reckoning without works and Philemon's liability without performance strengthen the distinction that makes it possible. The lack of prenatal deeds in Romans 9:11 does not refute that distinction.

The other account affirms a real inherited judgment and sinful, mortal condition caused by Adam, while distinguishing personal blame for wrongdoing from liability under that judgment. Ezekiel 18's different generations and own-iniquity rule, the twins' lack of deeds, and the distinction between inherited consequences and one's own acts keep this account possible. It cannot reduce Romans 5 to mere social influence or neutral mortality, postpone every Adamic effect until a person's first act, or require conscious knowledge for every kind of guilt. Numbers 16, Joshua 7, Leviticus 5 and 26, and Lamentations 5 were added specifically to test and exclude those weakenings.

The remaining step is whether shared judicial standing must be identified with each newborn's personal blame for Adam's specific act. The passages establish the former but do not choose that further explanation over the bounded alternative. This conclusion is based on the competing positive connections and their limits, not merely on the absence of a preferred phrase. It must not be broadened into Scripture does not say what Adam did to humanity.

Under either account, the answer affirms humanity's inherited predicament, denies that a newborn thereby personally ate the fruit, preserves God's judgment of each person's own ways, and directs attention to grace through Christ. What changes is the explanation of personal blame for Adam's individual deed. That difference is material to the question and was examined rather than omitted.

The record also does not claim that Psalms 51's personal conception confession independently proves an identical inward disposition in every newborn. Nor does it infer a particular child's absence of grace from bodily birth: Luke 1:15 above prevents that universal addition. No universal age or precise moment of first personal blame, biological transmission mechanism, or verdict about a particular infant's salvation was established. The writer must not supply one.

The search register preserves unread hits and unshown pages; the reading did not open the whole canon. These limitations must not be disguised as a finding of universal scriptural silence. The answer should use the exact firmness reached here: explicit about the stated Adamic condition, qualified about the stronger personal-blame explanation, and without a verdict on any particular soul.

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