The Ten Commandments: List, Meaning And Bible Verses

In This Article

1. What Are The Ten Commandments?
2. Where Are They In The Bible?
3. What Does Each Commandment Mean?
4. What Is The Most Important Commandment?
5. Do Christians Still Keep The Ten Commandments?
6. Which Commandment Is The Hardest To Keep?
7. How Do The Ten Commandments Relate To The Rest Of The Law?
8. Key Bible Verses About The Ten Commandments

People in the pews kept asking me versions of the same question about these ten sentences: do they still apply, which one matters most, and why do the Catholic and Protestant lists look different? Those are fair questions, and the answers sit right in Scripture once you read the commandments slowly and in their setting.

This page gives you the full list in a table, walks through each commandment, explains where it appears and how Jesus and the apostles handled it, and ends with the two questions that come up most: which one is greatest, and which one is hardest. Along the way I will point you to other articles here where a single commandment deserves its own long look.

What Are The Ten Commandments?

The Ten Commandments are the heart of the covenant God made with Israel after he brought them out of slavery in Egypt. The Hebrew phrase behind them is literally "the ten words" (Exodus 34:28), and Greek-speaking Jews later called them the Decalogue, from the same idea. They were written by God on two stone tablets (Exodus 31:18), and they were placed inside the ark of the covenant, the most sacred object in Israel's worship.

Notice the order of events, because it changes how the whole list reads. God does not open with a rule. He opens with a rescue:

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

Exodus 20:2 (NIV)

The commandments come after grace, not before it. Israel was already redeemed. The laws describe how a rescued people lives in relationship with the God who rescued them, and with each other. That pattern, redemption first and obedience as the response, holds all the way through the Bible, including in the New Testament.

The List At A Glance

Here are all ten using the numbering most Protestant churches follow (Reformed, Baptist, Anglican and most evangelical churches). The wording is a short paraphrase of Exodus 20:3-17; the exact NIV wording of several appears further down.

Why The Numbering Differs Between Churches

The biblical text never numbers the commandments, so traditions divide the verses differently. The Catholic Church and most Lutheran churches (following Augustine) treat "no other gods" and "no idols" as one commandment, which makes the Sabbath the third. To get back to ten, they split coveting in two: the ninth is not coveting your neighbor's wife, and the tenth is not coveting his goods. Jewish tradition counts the opening statement in verse 2 as the first "word" and joins the no-other-gods and no-idols verses as the second. Same text, same content, different counting. When someone searches for "10 commandments Catholic," this is the difference they are running into, and nothing is added or removed on either side.

Where Are They In The Bible?

Yes, the Ten Commandments are in the Bible, and in two places. The first is Exodus 20:1-17, where God speaks them to the people at Mount Sinai. The second is Deuteronomy 5:6-21, where Moses repeats them to the next generation about to enter the promised land, some forty years later. The two versions are nearly identical. The main difference is the Sabbath: Exodus grounds it in God's rest after creation, while Deuteronomy grounds it in Israel's rescue from slavery.

Surrounding chapters matter too. Exodus 19:1-6 sets up the covenant, Exodus 21 to 23 applies the ten to everyday cases (the "Book of the Covenant"), and Exodus 32 shows the tablets being broken when Israel worships the golden calf, which is the first and second commandments violated before the ink, so to speak, was dry. Exodus 34 records the tablets being given again.

If you want to read them in order, start at Exodus 20:1 and read to verse 17. It takes about two minutes. If you are new to the Bible and unsure where to go from there, the article on how to read the Bible gives a sensible order.

What Does Each Commandment Mean?

The First: No Other Gods

You shall have no other gods before me.

Exodus 20:3 (NIV)

This is more than a ban on statues of foreign deities. Anything that takes the place in our lives that belongs to God is a rival god. Jesus named money as the obvious candidate, saying that no one can serve two masters. If you want to see how Scripture treats the attitude behind this, read the article on greed, which Paul calls idolatry in so many words.

The Second: No Idols

You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.

Exodus 20:4 (NIV)

The first commandment is about who we worship; the second is about how. God is not to be represented by a thing he did not authorize. Christians have disagreed about what this means for religious art, and Protestants and Catholics, and Orthodox Christians with their icons, have answered differently. All three agree that worshiping a created thing is forbidden. For a related question about objects people treat as spiritually powerful, see what God says about using amulets.

The Third: God's Name

You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God

Exodus 20:7 (NIV)

Many people hear this as "don't say God's name in a swear word," and that is part of it. The deeper idea is carrying the name falsely: swearing an oath you do not intend to keep, claiming God's authority for your own agenda, or living as a hypocrite while wearing the label "Christian." If you have wondered where casual phrases fall, I have written on saying "Oh my God", swearing and cursing.

The Fourth: The Sabbath

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

Exodus 20:8 (NIV)

The seventh day was a day of rest and worship, rooted in God's own rest at creation. Christians have never fully agreed on how this carries forward. Some hold that Sunday, the day of the resurrection, takes the Sabbath's place in principle. Others hold that the Sabbath was a sign for Israel that Christ fulfills, so that Colossians 2:16 and Romans 14:5 leave the matter to conscience. Many believers hold that the principle of weekly rest and gathered worship still applies while the Mosaic details do not; others keep a Saturday Sabbath, and faithful Christians read this commandment differently. If you are wondering about the related question of skipping worship, see is not going to church a sin.

The Fifth: Honor Your Parents

Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

Exodus 20:12 (NIV)

Paul calls this the first commandment with a promise (Ephesians 6:1-3). Honor is not the same as obedience in every circumstance, and it does not mean pretending a harmful parent was good. It means treating parents with the weight and respect their role deserves, and in adulthood it includes caring for them in need. For the wider picture, see what the Bible says about family and children.

The Sixth: Do Not Murder

You shall not murder.

Exodus 20:13 (NIV)

The Hebrew word here, ratsach, refers to unlawful killing, which is why the NIV says "murder" rather than "kill." The same law code authorizes capital punishment for crimes and just war, so the commandment cannot be read as banning all taking of life. It protects human life because people bear God's image. Several questions grow out of it, and I treat them separately: abortion, suicide, self-defense and war. Jesus pushed the commandment into the heart, tying murder to unchecked anger and contempt (Matthew 5:21-22). See also is anger a sin and is hate a sin.

The Seventh: Do Not Commit Adultery

You shall not commit adultery.

Exodus 20:14 (NIV)

Adultery is sexual unfaithfulness in marriage, a broken covenant promise. Jesus again reaches the heart, saying that looking at another person with lust has already crossed a line (Matthew 5:27-28). The wider biblical teaching on sexual ethics is covered in is adultery a sin, sexual immorality, and lust. Divorce comes up often alongside this commandment, and the article on divorce takes it up carefully.

The Eighth: Do Not Steal

You shall not steal.

Exodus 20:15 (NIV)

Theft covers more than shoplifting: cheating on wages, defrauding a customer, withholding what is owed, and in Old Testament terms, moving boundary stones to grab land. Paul adds that a thief should work and have something to share (Ephesians 4:28). More at is stealing a sin, is cheating a sin, and usury.

The Ninth: Do Not Give False Testimony

You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

Exodus 20:16 (NIV)

In its first setting this protects the court system: a false witness could take a man's life or property. It stretches naturally to slander, rumor and any lie that damages another person, and the New Testament extends it to all truthful speech (Ephesians 4:25). Related reading: is lying a sin and is gossiping a sin.

The Tenth: Do Not Covet

You shall not covet your neighbor's house.

Exodus 20:17 (NIV)

The verse goes on to name a neighbor's wife, servants, ox, donkey, "or anything that belongs to your neighbor." This is the only commandment that is entirely about inner desire, which is why Paul says it was the one that exposed him (Romans 7:7). Coveting is where the sins of jealousy and greed grow, and it often feeds the actions banned in the commandments just before it.

What Is The Most Important Commandment?

Jesus was asked exactly this, and he did not choose one of the ten. He went underneath them:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

Matthew 22:37 (NIV)

He then added the second, from Leviticus 19:18, to love your neighbor as yourself, and said that all the Law and the Prophets hang on these two (Matthew 22:36-40). That is not a replacement of the Ten Commandments. It is a summary of their structure. The first four commandments are the love of God worked out; the last six are the love of neighbor worked out. Paul says the same thing in Romans 13:8-10: love does no harm to a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

So if you want a one-line answer to "what is the 10 commandments simplified," it is this: love God with everything, and love the person in front of you. The ten are what that love looks like in specific situations, so we are not left guessing.

Do Christians Still Keep The Ten Commandments?

Yes and no, and the distinction matters. Christians do not keep them as a way to earn God's favor. Galatians 2:16 says no one is justified by works of the law, and the commandments themselves were given to a people already redeemed. Nobody, Paul says, has kept them perfectly, and that is the whole point of Romans 3. The law shows us our need, and Christ meets it. For that reason the commandments stay useful as a mirror, but not as a ladder.

At the same time, the New Testament repeats nine of the ten as binding moral teaching for believers. Paul cites several of them in Romans 13 and Ephesians 4 and 6, Jesus cites the commandments to the rich young man (Matthew 19:16-19), and idolatry and the misuse of God's name are condemned throughout the epistles. The Sabbath is the one most debated, as covered above. Jesus said he came not to abolish the Law but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17).

What does this mean practically? A Christian who steals has not "lost" salvation by that act alone; see what the Bible says about sin after salvation. But that Christian has done wrong, needs to repent, and is not free to treat the commandments as optional. We obey out of love and gratitude, and with the help of the Holy Spirit, not out of fear.

A related question comes from the school and courtroom debates about posting the Ten Commandments publicly. That is a matter of law and civic policy, and I will leave it there. What I can speak to is what they mean for those who follow Jesus: they are God's good instruction for life, not a political slogan.

Which Commandment Is The Hardest To Keep?

Ask ten people and you will get several answers. Some say the Sabbath, because our culture does not stop. Some say honoring parents, when a parent has been unkind. But the answer Scripture itself points toward is the tenth, coveting, because it cannot be kept by outward behavior alone. You can avoid murder and theft for a lifetime and still be eaten up inside by envy of someone's house, marriage, career or life.

That is precisely how Paul felt it. He wrote that he would not have known what coveting was if the law had not said not to covet (Romans 7:7). A commandment about the heart is a commandment no one passes by effort. When Jesus taught in Matthew 5 that anger is the root of murder and lust the root of adultery, he was showing that all ten are really heart commandments, and all ten leave us short.

This is not meant to crush you. It points straight to the gospel. The same chapter that says all have sinned tells us we are justified freely by his grace. For the longer treatment of how forgiveness works, see does God forgive all sins and what the Bible says about forgiveness of sin.

Related: What Is Sin? and The Seven Deadly Sins, and the full index at Is It A Sin? Every Question Answered A To Z.

How Do The Ten Commandments Relate To The Rest Of The Law?

The Ten Commandments are the summary; the rest of the Law of Moses is the application. Old Testament scholars and pastors have long sorted the law into moral, civil and ceremonial parts. The moral part (the Decalogue and its principles) reflects God's unchanging character. The civil laws governed ancient Israel as a nation. The ceremonial laws (sacrifices, clean and unclean food, festivals) pointed forward to Christ. The New Testament treats the ceremonial and civil laws as fulfilled or no longer binding in the same way, while the moral core carries on. That is why a Christian can eat bacon (see is eating pork a sin) and still take adultery seriously.

For a closer look at how sin is defined in light of the law, see what is sin and the article on sins of omission, which asks what we owe when a commandment has a positive side as well as a negative one.

Key Bible Verses About The Ten Commandments

• Exodus 20:1-17: the Ten Commandments as God spoke them at Sinai.
• Deuteronomy 5:6-21: Moses repeats them to the next generation.
• Matthew 22:37-40: Jesus names the two great commandments that sum up the Law.
• Matthew 5:17-20: Jesus came to fulfill the Law, not to abolish it.
• Romans 13:8-10: love is the fulfillment of the commandments about neighbor.
• Romans 7:7-12: the law shows what sin is and that the commandment is holy.
• James 2:10-11: stumbling at one point makes a person accountable for the whole law.
• 1 John 5:3: loving God means keeping his commands, and they are not burdensome.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are the 10 Commandments found in the Bible?

Yes. They appear twice: God speaks them at Mount Sinai in Exodus 20:1-17, and Moses repeats them to the next generation in Deuteronomy 5:6-21. The two lists are nearly identical, with a small difference in the reason given for the Sabbath.

What is the most important commandment?

Jesus said it is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind, and that the second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:36-40). He was summarizing the Ten Commandments, not replacing them. The first four are about loving God, the last six about loving people.

What is the hardest commandment to keep?

Many believers point to the tenth, do not covet, because it governs desire rather than actions and no one can fully keep it by effort. Paul said it was the commandment that exposed his sin (Romans 7:7). Others struggle most with the Sabbath or with honoring a difficult parent.

Why are the Catholic and Protestant Ten Commandments numbered differently?

The Bible text does not number them. Catholics and Lutherans combine the no-other-gods and no-idols verses into one commandment and split coveting into two, while most Protestants count them as two and keep coveting as one. The words of the text are the same; only the counting differs.

Do Christians have to keep the Ten Commandments today?

Christians are not saved by keeping them, but the New Testament repeats most of them as moral teaching for believers. We obey out of gratitude and with the Spirit's help. See what the Bible says about sin after salvation.