1 And God spake all these words, saying, 2 I am the Lord thy God,
which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of
bondage. 3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 4 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:5 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; 6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love
me, and keep my commandments.
7 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.
(When a person profanes the Word of God, making spiritual things secular, he takes the name (The Word) of God in vain. I have heard ministers joke about parts of the word of God and later it is very hard to read that part of the Word without thinking of that minister and what that minister said. This makes the Word of God profane and takes the name of the Lord in vain, making it vain.)
8
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days shalt thou
labour, and do all thy work:10 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:11 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.
(NT sabbath ... Heb. 4:10 For he that is entered into HIS rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from HIS.
11 Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest,)
12 Honour thy father and thy mother:that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
13 Thou shalt not kill.
14 Thou shalt not commit adultery.
15 Thou shalt not steal.
16 Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
17
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.
18
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. 19 And they said unto Moses, Speak
thou with us, and we will hear:but let not God speak with us, lest we
die.
20 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.
(Having a "fear of the Lord" in you is critical. It is the fear of God which allows us to know that what God shows us is always the best way for us to go and if we do anything other than what God says in the matter at hand, we go in a way that is likely to destroy us. Therefore a fear of the Lord keeps us in the way of God. A fear of God is the knowledge that doing what God says is always the correct way for us. We must not choose to go opposite to that which God says to us. I have seen people in the church choose to go opposite from that which God told them and very bad things happen as a result. You would not think a person who is born again would choose to disobey God but I have seen this happen.)
21 And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.
22 And the Lord said unto Moses,
Thus thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, Ye have seen that I
have talked with you from heaven. 23 Ye shall not make with me gods of
silver, neither shall ye make unto you gods of gold.
24
An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon
thy burnt offerings, and thy peace offerings, thy sheep, and thine
oxen:in all places where I record my name I will come unto thee, and I
will bless thee.
25 And if thou wilt
make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone:for if
thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.
(Almost everything a human touches is polluted by that human. The pride of man in what "he" did pollutes the creation. If God tells us to do something and we do that, God is glorified. But when "we" do it, we glorify ourselves.)
26 Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon.