I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me.
The Book of Exodus
I Am the Lord Your God
Topic: Truth, Law, & Principle
And God spoke all these words, saying,
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shall you labor, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it.
Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you.
You shall not kill.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”
The Book of Exodus
Wilson, Andrew, editor. World Scripture - a Comparative Anthology of Sacred Texts. Paragon House, 1991, p. 110 [Exodus 20.1-17: The Ten Commandments]
Theme: Eternal Truth
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The Decalogue
The moral outlooks of most religions are basically quite similar. Just as the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments, is the
basis of Jewish and Christian ethical values, similar lists of ethical principles may be found in one form or another in the
scriptures of most religions. The Qur’an contains several passages summarizing proper ethical behavior which have been
called Islamic Decalogues. In Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism we find lists of ten charges or ten precepts for monks
and lay people, and there are further condensations into five universal dharmas called samanya dharma. Another
comparable list is found in the Buddhist Eightfold Path.
The first table of the Decalogue contains positive injunctions for right worship to establish a proper vertical relationship
with God, and the second table contains negative injunctions prohibiting criminal behavior in order to foster horizontal
relationships of community. These two ethical dimensions, the vertical towards the Absolute and the horizontal towards
one’s neighbor, are characteristic of such lists in every religi on. We may regard the injunctions to renunciation and
meditation in the Buddhist Eightfold Path and in other Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain lists of dharmas as non-theistic
expressions of the vertical dimension. In the horizontal dimension of law, prohibitions against social crimes such as
murder, adultery, and stealing are universal.
Exodus 20.1-17
Exodus 20.1-17: These are the Ten Commandments. There is some variation as to how they should be divided. In the
Jewish tradition the verse ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage’ is
regarded as the first commandment, but Christians regard it as a prologue. Most Protestants and Eastern Orthodox
Christians reckon ‘You shall have no other gods before me’ as the first commandment and the prohibition of images as
the second commandment. For Jews the second commandment includes both ‘You shall have no other gods’ and the
prohibition of graven images. Lutherans and Roman Catholics likewise regard ‘You shall have no other gods’ and the
prohibition of graven images as together constituting a single commandment, but reckon it the first commandment; they
then divide the verse against covetousness into two commandments to make up the ten.