The Ten Commandments

The Ten Commandments are the laws God gave to Israel at Mount Sinai, recorded in Exodus 20:1-17 and repeated in Deuteronomy 5. The Bible itself calls them the ten commandments, or in Hebrew the ten words, and says they were written on two tables of stone. Here is the full text in the King James Version. The first commandments concern how people relate to God and the rest how they treat one another, the two halves Jesus later summed up as loving God and loving your neighbour.

Exodus 20:1-17

1And God spake all these words, saying,

2I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

3Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

4Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:

5Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

6And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

7Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

8Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

9Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:

10But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:

11For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

12Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

13Thou shalt not kill.

14Thou shalt not commit adultery.

15Thou shalt not steal.

16Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

17Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.

King James Version

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The Ten Commandments in plain English

Where they come from

Three months after leaving Egypt, the Israelites camped at Mount Sinai. There God spoke these words to the whole people, and Moses later received them written on two tables of stone. They are repeated, with small differences, in Deuteronomy 5, where Moses reminds a new generation of them before they enter the promised land.

How they begin

They do not begin with a rule. They begin with, I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. The commands follow a rescue: they describe how a freed people should live, not what they must do to earn their freedom.

The commandments in plain English

In the order most Protestant churches number them:

One
Have no other gods before God.
Two
Do not make idols to worship.
Three
Do not take God's name in vain, using it carelessly or falsely.
Four
Keep the sabbath day holy, as a day of rest.
Five
Honour your father and mother.
Six
Do not murder. The King James Version says kill, but the Hebrew word means unlawful killing, which is why the World English Bible and most modern versions say murder.
Seven
Do not commit adultery.
Eight
Do not steal.
Nine
Do not give false testimony against your neighbour.
Ten
Do not covet: do not set your heart on what belongs to someone else.

Why churches number them differently

The Bible says there are ten but does not number them, so traditions divide the text in different places. Jewish tradition counts I am the LORD thy God as the first saying and joins no other gods and no idols as the second. Catholic and Lutheran churches join no other gods and no idols into one commandment and divide coveting into two, a neighbour's wife and a neighbour's goods. The Orthodox and most Protestant churches treat no other gods and no idols as two, and coveting as one. So the second commandment means something different from church to church, though the words are the same.

Churches also differ on the sabbath. For Jews and Seventh-day Adventists it is Saturday, while most Christians keep Sunday as the Lord's Day.