The Decalogue

The text from Exodus 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 have no other gods before me.

Thou 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: thou 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; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

Thou 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.

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: but 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: 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.

Honor 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 neighbor.

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

The above is the traditional text of the Ten Commandments, Ex. 20:1-20, from the King James Version, but without verse numbering or the exact numbering of the commandments qua commandents.

The traditional ordering of these verses as “ten sayings” or as “ten commandments,” in Exodus and in Deuteronomy, is actually not a settled matter: various sects of Jews, Catholics and Protestants number them differently. For a comparison of these divergent orderings, consult “The 10 Commandments List”; for Wikipedia’s even more thorough account, click here. Where to draw the line? One blogger suggests that the only way to number the commandments logically would be to count each use of a commanding word or phrase in the text, and match it with each corresponding subject — doing this, he got 13 or 14 commandments from the same passage in Exodus.

Click here to view or print a PDF of the Ten Commandments in the traditional Protestant ordering.

For other translations, see the Bible Gateway.