Our fathers sinned, and are not,
And we have borne their iniquities.
The prophet acknowledged that their fathers had sinned and were no longer alive. They had suffered the penalty of sin. And now their offspring themselves were ‘bearing their iniquities'. The sins of the fathers were being visited on the children. But this was not a matter of excusing themselves. It was an acknowledgement that YHWH had a right to be angry because sin had been continual, and a recognition that sins pass on from father to children as the children copy their father. Thus they had to bear God's judgment on both their father's sins and their own. They were not claiming to be innocent as Lamentations 5:16 makes clear. They were rather recognising the reality that sons tend to ape their fathers (see Jeremiah 16:10-11; Jeremiah 32:18), which the principle lying behind punishment to the third and fourth generation (Exodus 20:5). When people fell into gross sin it affected not only themselves but their descendants. However, we must remember that such consequences were always avoidable by coming to God in true repentance. God was always ready to respond to such repentance, as the whole sacrificial system made clear.