The Ten Commandments

The Decalogue appears twice in the Old Testament: in Exodus, at Mount Sinai, after Israel is brought out of slavery in Egypt, and again in Deuteronomy as Moses recalls the covenant. The order matters: liberation comes first, and the commandments follow as the terms of a relationship, not as a test to earn rescue.

Jesus does not set the commandments aside. In the Gospels he is asked which commandment is greatest and answers with love of God and love of neighbour, and he tells a man who asks about eternal life to keep the commandments. Catholic tradition reads the Decalogue in that light: as belonging to love, not competing with it.

1. I am the Lord your God: you shall not have strange gods before me. Nothing created is owed the trust that belongs to God: not money, not status, not a person, not an institution.

2. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. God's name is not a tool. This includes swearing oaths falsely and invoking God to justify what harms people.

3. Remember to keep holy the Lord's day. Rest and worship are commanded, not earned. A day is set aside for God and for genuine rest, which is why Catholics gather for Mass on Sunday.

4. Honour your father and your mother. Family bonds are real and deserve gratitude and care. Honour is not the same as obedience to harm; see the section below.

5. You shall not kill. Human life is not disposable. The Church draws from this a wide concern: murder, violence, neglect of the vulnerable, and anything that treats a person as expendable.

6. You shall not commit adultery. Faithfulness in marriage, and more broadly, sexual integrity: never using another person's body, trust, or vulnerability.

7. You shall not steal. Property is not absolute; the poor have a genuine claim on what others hold in surplus. Wage theft and exploitation belong here too.

8. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour. Truthfulness, and the protection of another person's reputation from lies and rumour.

9. You shall not covet your neighbour's wife. The interior life matters, not only the act: desire that would consume another person is already disordered.

10. You shall not covet your neighbour's goods. Envy corrodes. Enough is a real category.

Catholics, Lutherans, Orthodox, and Reformed Christians divide the same biblical text slightly differently, mainly over whether the prohibition of images is counted separately from the first commandment, and whether coveting is one commandment or two. The content is the same text; the division is a catechetical convention.

This is worth knowing because the difference is sometimes presented as Catholics 'removing' a commandment. Nothing is removed. Catholic catechisms include the prohibition of idolatry within the first commandment and treat images as a question about worship, not about art.

The fourth commandment does not require you to submit to a parent who is abusing you, to stay in contact with someone who is dangerous, or to let a family member harm your children. Honouring a parent can look like praying for them from a distance while keeping yourself and your dependants safe.

The eighth commandment does not require you to keep abuse secret. Telling the truth about what happened to you: to police, to a safeguarding office, to a therapist, to someone who can help: is not gossip, disloyalty, or slander. Concealment protects the person doing harm, not the truth.

The sixth and ninth commandments describe what faithfulness asks of a person who is free. They are not a verdict on someone whose body was used without consent. Abuse is what was done to you, not something you did.

The fifth commandment's regard for life includes your life. Protecting yourself, leaving, calling for help, and accepting medical or psychiatric care are consistent with it, not exceptions to it.

They are used as a mirror rather than a scoreboard: commonly in preparing for Confession, where the list becomes a set of questions about how you have treated God and other people, and what you want to change.

The Church distinguishes between grave and lesser sin, and takes seriously how much a person freely knew and chose. Fear, coercion, addiction, exhaustion, and trauma all bear on culpability. If someone has used the commandments to convince you that you are beyond mercy, they have taught you something the Church does not teach.

The commandments are also read socially, not only privately: unjust wages, neglected migrants, and violence against the vulnerable are treated as breaches of them, not as separate political concerns.