[Good Deeds and Evil Deeds]

Answer – and Allah is the One who grants success and help: It is possible that what is meant by that are the minor sins which do not necessitate eternal abiding in the Fire for the one who commits them. As for the believers, Allah, exalted is He, expiates them for them by their performance of acts of obedience and their avoidance of major sins. As for others, they are recompensed for them with their like on the Day of Resurrection, then their punishment for them ceases, then they abide eternally in the Fire because of their disbelief in Allah, their committing major sins and immoralities, and their arrogance toward Allah and His Messenger and His Book.
On this basis, Allah’s bounty and mercy are clear: as for in the recompense of the good deed, then without doubt; and as for in the recompense of the evil deed, then because He does not recompense the one who commits a minor sin among the disbelievers and the openly sinful except according to it, then its punishment ceases, then he remains abiding eternally in the Fire of Hell because of his disbelief and his sinful dissoluteness.
As for with respect to the believer, the minor sin is written against him as an evil deed, but Allah, exalted is He, due to the vastness of His mercy and His forgiveness, forgives it and overlooks it on the Day of Resurrection, because of his avoiding major sins and immoralities and his performance of the obligations of the Most Merciful, blessed and exalted. Thus Allah’s bounty in the case of the believer is clearer and more evident. Allah, exalted is He, said: "Those who avoid the major sins and immoralities, except the small faults – indeed, your Lord is vast in forgiveness." [an-Najm:32] and He said: "Indeed, good deeds do away with misdeeds.” [Hūd:114], and the like of that.
Yes, disbelief in Allah, undutifulness toward parents, killing a soul, and all the major sins for which Allah, exalted is He, has decreed eternal abiding in the Fire for the one who commits them if he does not repent of them – the recompense of whoever commits any of that is its like, and the “like,” as Allah has informed, is eternal abiding in the punishment of the Fire.
Now, even if we, as human beings, do not perceive and do not understand the equivalence between, for example, fornication and its recompense – which is eternal abiding in the Fire – we do indeed know and perceive that Allah is Just, Wise, and does not wrong even the weight of an atom, and that if there is a good deed, He multiplies it.
The cause of this problematic impression is that the human being evaluates and weighs the sin with the scale of his weak intellect. Concerning this Allah, exalted is He, said in the story of the Slander, in Sūrat an-Nūr: "And you thought it insignificant, while it was, in the sight of Allah, tremendous.” [an-Nūr:15] And Allah, exalted is He, said – depicting for us the sin of killing and its magnitude: "Whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption [done] in the land – it is as if he had killed all mankind.” [al-Māʾidah:32]
Among that whose aspect of greatness and enormity can be perceived is what came in the ḥadīth: “Whoever initiates an evil practice (sunnah sayyi’ah) will bear its burden and the burden of whoever acts upon it until the Day of Resurrection.”
And among that is turning people away from the path of Allah and standing in the way of guidance and faith – because of what results from that of preventing people from guidance, which is the path of happiness.
And in the ḥadīth: “For Allah to guide a man through you is better for you than whatever the sun rises upon,” and the opposite is opposite.

Source: Min Thimār al-ʿIlm wa al-Ḥikmah vol.3