THE TEN
COMMANDMENTS
Old Testament book
of
Exodus Chapter 19: Three months after God
delivered the people of Israel from slavery in
Egypt, the same day they came into the
wilderness of Sinai. Moses went up into the
mountain and talked with God who instructed him
to tell the people: Thus shalt thou say to the
house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel:
Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and
how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you
unto myself, now therefore, if ye will obey my
voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye
shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all
people: for all the earth is mine. And ye shall
be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy
nation. These are the words which thou shalt
speak unto the children of Israel.
Moses called
for the elders of the people, and laid before
their faces all these words which the Lord
commanded him. The people answered together, and
said: All that the Lord hath spoken we will do.
Moses returned the words of the people unto the
Lord.
And the Lord said unto Moses: I come unto thee
in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when
I speak with thee, and believe thee for ever.
Moses told the words of the people unto the
Lord.
The Lord said
unto Moses: Go unto the people, and sanctify
them to day and to morrow, and let them wash
their clothes, and be ready against the third
day: for the third day the Lord will come down
into the sight of all the people upon mount
Sinai. Thou shalt set bounds unto the people
round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves,
that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the
border of it: whosoever toucheth the mount shall
be surely put to death: There shall not an hand
touch it, but he shall surely be stoned, or shot
through, whether it be beast or man, it shall no
live: when the trumpet soundeth long, they shall
come up to the mount.
Moses went
down from the mountain unto the people, and
sanctified them, and they washed their clothes,
and he said to the people: Be ready against the
third day, cone not at your wives.
And it came
to pass on the third day in the morning, that
there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick
cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the
trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people
that was in the camp trembled.
Moses brought
forth the people out of the camp to meet with
God; and they stood at the nether part of the
mount.
And mount
Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the
Lord descended upon it in fire: and the smoke
thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and
the whole mount quaked greatly.
When the
voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed
louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered
him by a voice.
The Lord came
down upon mount Sinai, on the top of the mount:
and the Lord called Moses up to the top of the
mount: and Moses went up.
The Lord said
unto Moses: Go down, charge the people, lest
they break through unto the Lord to gaze, and
many of them perish.
And let the
priests also, which come near to the Lord,
sanctify themselves, lest the Lord break forth
upon them.
Moses said
unto the Lord: The people cannot come up to
mount Sinai; for thou chargedst us, saying, set
bounds about the mount, and sanctify it.
The Lord said
unto him: Away, get thee down, and thou shalt
come up, thou, and Aaron with thee: but let not
the priests and the people break through to come
up unto the Lord, lest he break forth upon them.
So Moses went
down unto the people, and spake unto them.
Exodus
Chapter 20:
And God spake all these words saying:
I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee
out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of
bondage.
Thou shalt no other gods
before me.
Thou shalt not make unto thee
any 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. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to
them, nor serve them, for I the Lord they 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; And
shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love
me, and keep my commandments.
Thou shalt not take the name
of the Lord they God in vain; for the Lord
will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name
in vain.
Remember the sabbath day, to
keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour,
and do all they work: But the seventh day is the
sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt
not do any work, thou, nor they son, nor thy
maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger
that is within thy gates; For 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.
Honour thy father and thy
mother, that thy days may be long upon the
land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
Thou shalt not kill
Thou shalt not commit
adultery
Thou shalt not steal
Thou shalt not bear false
witness against thy neighbour
Thou shalt not covet the
neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy
neighbours's wife, nor his manservant, nor his
maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any
thing that is thy neighbour's.
And all the people saw the
thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise
of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and
when the people saw it, they removed, and stood
afar off. And they said unto Moses, Speak thou
with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak
with us, lest we die.
And Moses said unto the people:
Fear not: for God is come to prove you and that
his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin
not.
In the Old Testament book
of Deuteronomy Chapter 5, it also tells of
how the commandments were given to Moses; and
how Moses wrote them in two tables of stone.
