A splitting headache — the wages of sin, he groaned.
the wages of sin
idiomThe inevitable painful consequences of wrongdoing.
Origin
The phrase comes from the Apostle Paul in Romans 6:23: the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. Paul frames wrongdoing as work that earns a wage — you get paid what your actions have coming to you, and what they earn is death.
The metaphor is deliberately transactional. Wages are something owed and worked for, not a random misfortune, so the phrase carries the sense of a debt falling due, a consequence earned rather than merely suffered.
In English the wages of sin names the harmful results that catch up with bad behaviour — often used lightly, of hangovers and other self-inflicted troubles, but keeping the old implication that the bill was always going to arrive.
The company had cut every corner for years, and the recall was the wages of sin finally coming due.
He had built his fortune on deals he knew would not survive scrutiny, and when the investigators finally arrived, he met them with the weary look of a man who had always understood that the wages of sin would be paid in the end.
Acts and the letters of Paul to the first churches.
- 01
reap what you sow (idiom)
Your actions produce their own inevitable consequences, good or bad.
- 02
the root of all evil (idiom)
The underlying source of much wrongdoing — most often applied to money.
- 03
fight the good fight (idiom)
To persevere with determination in a worthy and difficult struggle.
- 04
a thorn in the side (idiom)
A persistent source of irritation, trouble, or difficulty.
- 05
road to Damascus (idiom)
An important point in someone's life where a great change, or reversal, of ideas or beliefs occurs.
- 06
in the twinkling of an eye (idiom)
In an instant; extremely quickly.