God warned Israel about idolatry from the top of Mount Sinai through Moses. He told His people to not bow down nor serve them, meaning idols (Exodus 20:5). He then explained that He would visit the iniquity unto the third and the fourth generations or them that hate Him. The prophet Ezekiel revealed that the prophet would not answer for the sins of the son nor the son for the sins of the father. The soul that sins it would die (Ezekiel 18:20). The harmony between these two statements is seen in how individuals or nations develop. By way of example, God told Abraham that in four hundred years Israel would leave Egypt and come to Canaan. The reason God gave was that the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full (Genesis 15:16).
It would take about four generations for iniquity of the Amorites to reach a full point to which there would be no turning back. In the same way the passage in Exodus shows that growing in the home would last until the third and fourth generations. The line in the sand so to speak was concerning those who hated God. The hatred for God would be passed down from generation to generation. The passage in Ezekiel concerns a son growing up seeing his father being unrighteous. The son, seeing that, chooses to be righteous. The passage in Exodus deals with the growth of sin while the one in Ezekiel shows individuals can choose to not hate God.
Romans 1, 29-31 lists the end result of the sins mentioned in verses 21-28. One of the end results of the sins was, “haters of God”. (verse 30). From a moral stance many would declare with great confidence that they do not hate God. The morally good person has a harder time, in some cases, of accepting the truth about Jesus. They already see themselves as being good people so why come to Jesus? Jesus taught that if a person loved a family member more than Him, they were not worthy of Him (Matthew 10:34-37). The call is not to hate one’s family but never allow the love for that person to be greater than the love for God. Many are guilty of hating God, meaning they love other things more than they love Him.