day of reckoning

The time when one is called to account. The idea no doubt comes from the biblical Day of Judgment, when Jesus is supposed to return to earth for God’s final sentence on mankind. The day of reckoning came to have a somewhat more benign meaning, referring to paying one’s debts, or accounting for one’s actions. The expression became common in the nineteenth century. “There will be a day of reckoning sooner or later,” wrote Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby, 1838).