He says, "I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love Me and keep My commandments." (Exodus 20:5-6)
Notice that in this part of Exodus 20, God is not talking about the commandment He just gave. He's talking about Himself! He's a "jealous" God - that's why He won't tolerate us worshipping any other God, or trusting anything or anyone more than Him, or deciding for ourselves what's right and what's wrong. Consequently, He threatens to punish sin!
Although there are other definitions of "sin" and we may talk about them later, here it means "breaking any of God's commandments."
In Greek (the original language of the New Testament), the word for sin is "hamartia" which literally means "missing the mark." It's the word you use to describe the distance between where an arrow hits the target and dead center. In other words, God's commands are given to be kept and kept perfectly.
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