And ye shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. Since the word iniquity is in the singular number, it evidently refers to some wrong of which the people of Israel are guilty, and on account of which they are suffering. The second thing for which they will pine away is the iniquities of their fathers. In this passage God declares that He visits the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation. People reap what they sow.
Sin always leaves it's mark upon the sinner.
According top this passage, the effects of the fathers sins are transmitted to his children, to the third and fourth generation. The King James version is wrong in translating the first clause as if it were conditional. Confessing or not confessing the iniquity is not an optional matter for Israel to decide God speaks of it as one of Israel's musts . Their fathers are also guilty of an iniquitous act. The act of iniquity of which the fathers are guilty is a trespass which the fathers trespass against Jehovah while they are in the land.