The ten commandments
5
📚And Moses called all Israel, and said to them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your hearing this day, so that you may learn them, and keep, and do them. 2 📚The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. 3 📚The LORD did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, with all of us who are alive here this day. 4 📚The LORD talked with you face to face at the mountain from the midst of the fire 5 📚(I stood between the LORD and you at that time, to report to you the word of the LORD; for you were afraid because of the fire and did not go up on the mountain), saying, 6 📚“I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.
7 📚“You shall have no other gods besides me.
8 📚“You shall not make for yourselves any carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth below or that is in the waters below the earth. 9 📚You shall not bow down to them, or serve them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the wrongdoing of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 10 📚and showing mercy to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
11 📚“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.
12 📚“Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy, just as the LORD your God has commanded you. 13 📚Six days you shall labour, and do all your work; 14 📚but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. You shall not do any work in it, not you, or your son, or your daughter, or your male servant, or your female servant, or your ox, or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or your foreigner who is inside your gates; so that your male servant and your female servant may rest just as you do. 15 📚And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and that the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and with a stretched out arm. Therefore the LORD your God has commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.
16 📚“Honour your father and your mother, just as the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live a long time and that it may go well with you in the land which the LORD your God gives you.
17 📚“You shall not commit murder.
18 📚“You shall not commit adultery.
19 📚“You shall not steal.
20 📚“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.
21 📚“You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, and you shall not covet your neighbour’s house, his field, or his male servant, or his female servant, his ox, or his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour”.
5:6-21 Notes at Ex 20:1-17.⚜
The People's Fear
22 📚These words the LORD spoke to your whole assembly on the mountain, from the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice, and he added nothing more. And he wrote them on two tablets of stone, and handed them over to me.
23 📚And it came about, when you heard the voice from the midst of the darkness, while the mountain was blazing with fire, that you, that is all the heads of your tribes and your elders, approached me, 24 📚and you said, “See, the LORD our God has showed us his glory and his greatness, and we have heard his voice from the midst of the fire. Today we have seen that God talks with man, yet he lives. 25 📚So now why should we die? For this great fire will consume us. If we hear the voice of the LORD our God any more, we will die. 26 📚For among all flesh who is there who has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived? 27 📚You go near, and hear all that the LORD our God says, and tell us all that the LORD our God speaks to you; and we will hear it, and do it”.
28 📚And the LORD heard what you said when you spoke to me; and the LORD said to me, “I have heard what this people said, what they have spoken to you. Everything they have said is good. 29 📚Oh, that there was such a heart in them, that they would fear me and always keep all my commandments, so that it might be well with them, and with their children forever!
5:29 Ps 81:13; Isa 48:18; Ex 8:30-32. God wants men to be holy, righteous, and good. In the beginning He made them so (Gen 1:31). But men now corrupted by sin must choose to be holy, righteous, and good (though their own will and strength will not make them so). They must repent and seek God. If they refuse to do this they will never have a heart to fear God and keep His commandments. Notes on the fear of God at Gen 20:11; Ps 34:11-14; 111:10; Prov 1:7.⚜
30 “Go say to them, ‘Go back to your tents.’ 31 📚But as for you, stand here with me, and I will tell you all the commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments, which you are to teach them, so that they may do them in the land which I give them as a possession”.
32 📚Therefore you shall observe to do just as the LORD your God has commanded you. You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. 33 📚You shall walk in all the ways which the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live and that it may be well with you, and that you may live a long time in the land which you will possess.