How would a traffic policeman react when he caught you breaking the speed limit if you replied: “Sorry, officer, I can’t help it, speeding is in my genes, you see.”We all know instinctively when we are in the wrong, even if we aren’t prepared to admit it. But in what way and to whom are we ultimately accountable? King David on one occasion was so taken by a woman’s beauty that he ordered her to come to him while her husband was away at war. When she informed the king she was pregnant by him, David first tried implicating her husband, and when that failed, had him murdered. Confronted by the prophet Nathan he was forced to admit: “I have sinned against the Lord”. And then he composed a penitential psalm to God where he said:you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.” David recognised that his ultimate accountability was not before man, but before his Maker. Jesus said the same thing: “I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.” (Matthew 12: 36) Paul similarly writes: So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.” (Rom 14: 12)