Growing up in a Christian home, I was
occasionally chastened for misbehavior with the words “Be sure your sin will
find you out.” Or I heard other Christian parents using it. Or my irate Sunday
School teacher. Or somebody. The memory’s a bit fuzzy, to be honest.
In any case, the line was very familiar, though for some reason I wrongly associated it with Saul and Samuel rather than
Moses, who actually said it to the emissaries from the tribes of Reuben and Gad
who had proposed to settle their people in the land beyond the Jordan. They solemnly
promised to first fight alongside the other men of Israel in order to bring God’s
people into their inheritance.