The Ten Commandments

God spoke the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai and wrote them on two tables of stone. They are in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. Every catechism of the Reformation explains them.

Source
Exodus 20:1–17 and Deuteronomy 5:6–21
Text
King James Version
Forms
The full text, and the short form that catechisms use

What is the Ten Commandments?

The first table teaches our duty to God. The second table teaches our duty to our neighbour. Jesus summarised them: love God with all your heart, and love your neighbour as yourself.

Churches number the commandments in two ways. Reformed churches count the command against images as the second commandment. Lutheran and Roman Catholic churches join it to the first, and they divide the command against coveting into two.

History

The Westminster Shorter Catechism explains the commandments in Questions 41 to 81. The Heidelberg Catechism explains them in Questions 92 to 115. Luther’s Small Catechism begins with them.

What it teaches

How to memorise the Ten Commandments

Hearers breaks each answer into clauses and teaches each clause in four steps.

  1. 01

    Read

    Read the text with the clauses marked. Listen to it read aloud.

  2. 02

    Trace

    Type the first letter of each word, with the words shown faintly.

  3. 03

    Fade

    Half of the words go. Type the text again, and fill the gaps from memory.

  4. 04

    Recall

    All the words go. Type it or say it aloud. Each clause gets its own grade and its own review date.

The full text

The preface

Exod 20:2

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

The first commandment

Exod 20:3

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Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

The second commandment

Short

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Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.

Exod 20:4–6

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

The third commandment

Short

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Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain.

Exod 20:7

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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.

The fourth commandment

Short

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Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Exod 20:8–11

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Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, 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.

The fifth commandment

Short

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Honour thy father and thy mother.

Exod 20:12

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

The sixth commandment

Exod 20:13

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Thou shalt not kill.

The seventh commandment

Exod 20:14

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Thou shalt not commit adultery.

The eighth commandment

Exod 20:15

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Thou shalt not steal.

The ninth commandment

Exod 20:16

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Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

The tenth commandment

Short

Learn this

Thou shalt not covet.

Exod 20:17

Learn this

Thou 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.

Source: King James Version (1769), Exodus 20 (Public domain).

Questions

Why do Lutherans and Reformed number the commandments differently?
Scripture says that there are ten, but it does not number them. Augustine joined the commands against other gods and against images. Most Reformers, after the early church fathers, kept them apart.