We should be careful not to confuse two different things.

Eze 18 does define an excellent "jurisprudence" that has been taken up by many western law systems. It defines guilt in standard forensic sense. That is, it defines guilt by what someone has done.

Matt 23 contains Jesus' seven woes against the Jewish leadership. They were already guilty because of many things they done, even according to the criteria in Eze 18. But then Jesus goes further. He utters a prophecy (note the future tense of the verbs) in Matt 23:34-36 about what would happen, and what they would do to incriminate themselves still further. This was fulfilled in Jesus' crucifixion and the stoning of Stephen (Acts 7), among others.

The passage is interesting because it links what they has already done (the seven woes) with the evil habits they had inherited from the practices of their forebears. Thus, they had not inherited the guilt of their ancestors who murdered prophets, in the forensic sense, but had inherited their practices, disposition and opposition to God's messengers. Jesus' accurate prophecy of their future behavior, reflecting their previous behavior makes them guilty.

Jesus' almost palpable anger and sadness is apparently deepened by the their supreme hypocrisy - they condemn those who killed Zechariah but then have, and will commit even greater crimes. Hence Jesus' prophecy they they will have all this come upon them because they are worse than their ancestors and will commit greater crimes.

We should be careful not to confuse two different things.

Eze 18 does define an excellent "jurisprudence" that has been taken up by many western law systems. It defines guilt in standard forensic sense. That is, it defines guilt by what someone has done.

Matt 23 contains Jesus' seven woes against the Jewish leadership. They were already guilty because of many things they had done, even according to the criteria in Eze 18. But then Jesus goes further. He utters a prophecy (note the future tense of the verbs) in Matt 23:34-36 about what would happen, and what they would do to incriminate themselves still further. This was fulfilled in Jesus' crucifixion and the stoning of Stephen (Acts 7), among others.

The passage is interesting because it links what they had already done (the seven woes) with the evil habits they had inherited from the practices of their forebears. Thus, they had not inherited the guilt of their ancestors who murdered prophets, in the forensic sense, but had inherited their practices, disposition and opposition to God's messengers. Jesus' accurate prophecy of their future behavior, reflecting their previous behavior makes them guilty as would be demonstrated when His prophecy was fulfilled.

Jesus' almost palpable anger and sadness is apparently deepened by the their supreme hypocrisy - they condemn those who killed Zechariah but then have committed, and will commit even greater crimes. Hence Jesus' prophecy they they will have all this come upon them because they are worse than their ancestors and will commit greater crimes.