The Ten Commandments

We have the grave obligation to fulfill these 10 fundamental duties toward God and toward our neighbors.

The Ten Commandments teach us how to serve God and how to treat the people around us. They all prompt us to practice certain virtues and forbid a variety of immoral behaviors. For some of the commandments, I have included a shorter, more familiar form of the commandment that many Christians will likely recognize. I have used the division and numbering established by Saint Augustine.

The second of two parchment sheets making up 4Q41 or 4QDeuteronomy, also known as the "All Souls Deuteronomy", one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, dated to the first century BC. This second sheet contains Deuteronomy 5:1-6:1, and thus preserves one of the oldest extant copies of the Ten Commandments. Photograph by Shai Halevi, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Love of God

• I am the Lord your God: you shall not have strange Gods before me.

  “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall not have other gods beside me. You shall not make for yourself an idol or a likeness of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth; you shall not bow down before them or serve them. For I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God, inflicting punishment for their ancestors’ wickedness on the children of those who hate me, down to the third and fourth generation; but showing love down to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.” — Exodus 20:2-6

• You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

  “You shall not invoke the name of the Lord, your God, in vain. For the Lord will not leave unpunished anyone who invokes his name in vain.” — Exodus 20:7

• Remember to keep holy the Lord’s Day.

  “Remember the sabbath day—keep it holy. Six days you may labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God. You shall not do any work, either you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your work animal, or the resident alien within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them; but on the seventh day he rested. That is why the Lord has blessed the sabbath day and make it holy.” — Exodus 20:8-11

Love of Neighbor

• Honor your father and mother.

  “Honor your father and your mother, that you may have a long life in the land the Lord your God is giving you.” — Exodus 20:12

• “You shall not kill.” — Exodus 20:13

• “You shall not commit adultery.” — Exodus 20:14

• “You shall not steal.” — Exodus 20:15

• “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” — Exodus 20:16

• You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife (Ninth) and you shall not covet your neighbor’s goods (Tenth).

  “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, his male or female slave, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” — Exodus 20:17