I would hope you don’t need an ancient stone tablet to tell you murder is bad.

So why are we still talking about an ancient law code that mixes archaic commands like “don’t make idols” with obvious ones like “don’t steal”?

Today, the Ten Commandments are perhaps the most recognizable list of rules in any major religion. (Just don’t ask most Christians to recite them from memory.) The commandments appear in wall art, monuments, on classroom walls—and in arguments about whether they belong on monuments and classroom walls.

So what are they? Are they God’s top-10 favorite rules? An interesting, but irrelevant bit of history? Something else?

We’ll see how the Ten Commandments were given to people who had just escaped slavery and were learning how to live freely with God and one another. We’ll go commandment by commandment, including the ones that need a little more explanation than “don’t murder.”

And, yes, we’ll talk about the Commandments’ uncomfortable implications about gender and slavery found inside.

What Are the Ten Commandments, in Order?

1. Put no other gods before God.
2. Don’t make or worship idols.
3. Don’t misuse God’s name.
4. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
5. Honor your father and mother.
6. Don’t murder.
7. Don’t commit adultery.
8. Don’t steal.
9. Don’t lie about your neighbor.
10. Don’t covet what belongs to someone else.

Note: Some faith traditions order the Ten Commandments differently. Check the FAQs below for more info.

Where Are the Ten Commandments in the Bible?

You’ll find the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:1–17 and again in Deuteronomy 5:6–21. They’re part of the Old Testament, happening right after the famous Bible stories of Moses and the burning bush, and the Exodus from Egypt.

Why Did God Give the Ten Commandments?

Think of the Ten Commandments, and most of the laws surrounding them, as a kind of rehab program. The ancient Israelites just left an abusive relationship. They’d been enslaved and wanted to start fresh. But their only template for society was the one they just left.

God rescued them and, like any good rehab program would, He gave the Ten Commandments as clear, specific, rigid guidelines to keep them from backsliding into the kind of kingdom they’d just left.

What Does Each of the Ten Commandments Mean? A Commandment-by-Commandment Guide

1. “You shall have no other gods before me.”

“Put God first” is the simplest way to sum up this commandment.

For the ancient Israelites, it meant following God instead of other gods. They had just left Egypt, which had its own set of deities specializing in everything from harvests to the afterlife. Each god promised good in exchange for loyalty, sacrifice, and adhering to their way of life.

This commandment is about who you choose to follow. Most of us aren’t tempted to collect ancient deities. However, we’re still quite capable of building our lives around whatever promises control, security, or approval instead of trusting God as the foundation of our lives.

How to Apply the First Commandment Today:

Pay attention to whatever gets the final say in your life, and ask whether it deserves that power.

2. “You shall not make for yourself an image.”

This command told ancient Israel not to create a statue, idol, or object representing God or any other god.

In the ancient world, worshippers treated an image as a place where a god could become present while still existing beyond the object. Like a wifi hotspot for a god’s presence. Deuteronomy explains why Israel’s worship would be different.

Any image makes a claim about God. A bull-shaped image might emphasize the god’s supposed power. An image shaped like a royal figure could connect God with the authority of a particular ruler. Giving God a form said, “God is like this.”

So, even for the ancient Israelites, this command wasn’t only about making statues. It’s also been about defining God on our own terms. Most Christians who break it today aren’t carving images. Instead, it’s when we convince ourselves we’re following God, but we’re really following a God we made out of our preferences, biases, and vision of reality. And wouldn’t you know it, our version of God usually agrees with us.

How to Apply the Second Commandment Today:

Resist creating a version of God who always agrees with you.

3. “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord.” 

This is also commonly known as taking the Lord’s name in vain. You may have heard this explained as “don’t use God’s name as a swear word.” That’s not really what this is about. It’s actually a command to stop attaching God’s name to something He didn’t say or do.

Today, imagine a Christian says something like, “God hates people of ____ background or belief.” Then they back it up with some Bible verse. They might sound spiritual, but they’re really taking the Lord’s name in vain. God loves everyone and invites everyone into His kingdom.

This commandment warns God’s people. If you’re not 100% sure you’re sharing truth from God, keep His name out of it.

How to Apply the Third Commandment Today:

Don’t attach “God says” to an opinion you want people to accept.

4. “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.”

The Sabbath was a weekly day set apart for rest and worship. Ancient Israel had just left a system where they were enslaved. That meant they’d been subjected to generations of propaganda, insisting that their work defined their worth.

So yes, God does want us to rest our physical bodies. But it’s more than that. Sabbath is a rebellion against any system that equates productivity with worth. God’s people got a weekly reminder when everything shut down. No one could work, including servants, immigrants, or even animals.

How to Apply the Fourth Commandment Today:

Remember that your productivity doesn’t determine your value.

5. “Honor your father and your mother.”

Honoring your parents means treating them with respect and helping care for them.

As a church kid, I heard a lot about obeying your parents or else God will be mad at you. But this command wasn’t just written for young kids. In ancient Israel’s society, people didn’t move around a lot. They usually stayed in their community for life. They didn’t have nursing homes or retirement plans. They had kids who were expected to care for their parents as they aged.

Jesus later confronted people who gave money to God while refusing to support their parents (Mark 7:9-13).

As a kid, I thought this command was “follow rules, and don’t make your parents mad.” Essentially, God gives parents authority. But, as the ancient authors knew, not all parents are good parents. So “honoring your parents” doesn’t translate to “perpetual obedience.” Depending on the relationship, honoring a parent may look like offering care, telling the truth, or setting a firm boundary.

How to Apply the Fifth Commandment Today:

Treat your parents with respect and care, while setting boundaries if the relationship is harmful.

6. “You shall not murder.”

This command means you can’t intentionally and unjustly take another person’s life.

Like today, ancient Israel didn’t treat every death the same. An accident was different from a planned attack. Killing during war or as a legal punishment also fell into separate categories.

This law is fairly obvious. Every ancient law code has something on the books about murder. But, much later, Jesus had some thoughts on this commandment. He said that even hatred toward someone in your heart broke this commandment. Meaning this command is both literal (don’t actually murder people), and directed at the root of the problem.

Most murders start with anger and hatred. So Jesus wants us to murder our hate. Let it go, so it doesn’t lead to something darker.

How to Apply the Sixth Commandment Today:

Refuse to treat someone, in person or online, as less important than you.

7. “You shall not commit adultery.”

This command prohibits sexual unfaithfulness in marriage.

Growing up, I heard this law as fairly straightforward. Essentially, “When you get married, don’t sleep with anyone else.” Which is definitely great advice, but the original command was a little more complicated.

This was a deeply patriarchal society. Women often had little say in whom they married. Marriages could be arranged to connect families or protect an inheritance. Men could have multiple wives. Women couldn’t have multiple husbands. You can probably see where this is going.

A woman heard, “Once the men in your life choose your husband, you can only have sex with him.” A man heard, “Don’t sleep with another man’s wife. But if I want to sleep with someone who’s not married yet, then I can just marry them too.”

The command placed a boundary around marriage, but ancient men and women experienced that boundary differently. Meaning women often experienced greater consequences. But that was never God’s intention for this commandment. God used this command to turn the ship around on this kind of inequality. We see Jesus underscore the need for this kind of turnaround in this story from His life, where a woman caught in adultery is dragged before Him. But not the man. You can read that Jesus story here and see how Jesus responds.

How to Apply the Seventh Commandment Today:

Protect your relationships by practicing faithfulness with your body and attention.

8. “You shall not steal.”

This command means you don’t take what belongs to someone else.

The original command covered property, food, animals, and anything else another person depended on. Stealing could threaten someone’s survival in a world without insurance or a customer service number to call afterward.

We all know stealing property is bad. But today, stealing could mean stealing credit to get ahead at work or taking others’ work by passing off AI work as your own.

The command asks us to respect what belongs to other people, even when taking it would be easy.

How to Apply the Eighth Commandment Today:

Respect other people’s property, time, and work, even when taking credit would be easy.

9. “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.”

This command prohibits lying about someone.

Its first setting was a courtroom. A false witness could cost another person their property, freedom, or life. No security cameras were there to clear things up later. A community had to decide whose story it trusted.

Jesus tells us that everyone is our neighbor, so we’re never allowed to lie about someone else. This includes gossip, but also how we engage with social media. Are we representing people fairly or based on biases? And are we spreading lies of others because we failed to research the truth for ourselves.

I know I’m tempted to uncritically believe posts that confirm what I already think and feel skeptical about anything that challenges me.

This command asks us to care about the person on the other side of the story, including the person we don’t like.

How to Apply the Ninth Commandment Today:

Check whether a story is true before helping it damage someone’s reputation.

10. “You shall not covet.”

To covet is to want what belongs to someone else in a way that begins pulling you toward taking it.

Seeing your neighbor’s nicer house and wishing your kitchen had that much counter space isn’t automatically a moral crisis. Coveting goes further. Their good life starts to feel like an insult to yours. You stop enjoying what you have because you’re busy imagining yourself with what belongs to them.

Let’s also take an (uncomfortable) moment to notice that the verse lists what you’re not allowed to covet. It puts wives, homes, servants, and animals in the same bucket. Again, this is from an ancient patriarchal culture, where people could be seen as property. It was not God’s commentary on the worth of women or servants.

The final command turns inward. Someone could avoid murder, adultery, and theft while still feeding the desires behind them. God cared about what Israel did, and He cared about the kind of people they were becoming.

How to Apply the 10th Commandment Today:

Learn to enjoy your own life without treating someone else’s good life as a personal insult.

Struggling with comparison? Try these prayers.

What Did Jesus Say About the Ten Commandments?

When Jesus was asked to name the most important commandment, He chose two that weren’t on this list: Love God with everything you are, and “love your neighbor as yourself.”

Those two commands summed up everything else. The first commandment focuses on loving God. The rest explain how to love the people around us.

Then Jesus raised the bar. Most of us can (hopefully) make it through an average day without murdering anyone. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus also addressed the anger and contempt that lead us to treat someone as less human. He did the same with adultery, tracing the betrayal back to the way we look at and think about other people.

Why Don’t the Ten Commandments Condemn Slavery or Sexism?

Christians often rush to a “the Bible was progressive for its time” argument, then quickly change the subject. I’ve certainly done that. And while I do think there’s some truth to it, I don’t find it particularly inspiring.

Do you find “God’s fine with treating women as second-class and enslaved people as property as long as you’re nicer than the other culture around you,” to be very reassuring? I didn’t think so. So how do we process this?

I think the Bible gives the clearest answer: Jesus is the best picture of what God is like, so if you want to know what God’s really like, don’t start with the Ten Commandments; start with Jesus.

The Ten Commandments accurately represent what people believed God wanted them to do. Yet Jesus elevated the interpretation of many of the commandments, revealing that they only showed a partial picture of what God’s like.

So when you read the Bible and find it supporting patriarchy (which it does) and affirming chattel slavery (which it does), we don’t say, “This tells us what God is like.” Instead, we say, this is how ancient people understood God, but Jesus shows us a fuller picture of what God is like. Jesus welcomed women as disciples, challenged people who used power to control others, and gave up His own status to serve.

Who is Jesus and what is He like?

Do Christians Still Have to Follow the Ten Commandments?

I do think it’s valuable for Christians to know the Ten Commandments and reflect on how they apply to their lives today. Especially ones we might think we don’t have to worry about, but they’re not the main point of Christianity. Christians are called to live and love like Jesus. And a side effect of following Jesus is keeping the Ten Commandments.

Christians disagree about how some commands apply today, especially the Sabbath. Still, the Ten Commandments help us recognize the harm we cause and the kind of life God asks us to live.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Ten Commandments

When Were the Ten Commandments Given to Moses?

Some biblical timelines place the event around 1446 BC, while other scholars place the Exodus later or question whether it can be assigned a precise historical date. According to the story in Exodus, God gave the commandments to Moses at Mount Sinai after Moses led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt.

Why Do Different Traditions Number the Ten Commandments Differently?

The Bible calls them Ten Commandments but doesn’t place a helpful little number beside each one. Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant traditions divide the instructions differently, especially the commands about other gods, idols, and coveting. So the content is the same but the numbering varies.

Are the Ten Commandments Important in Judaism?

Yes. God first gave the commandments as part of His covenant, or binding relationship, with the people of Israel. They remain sacred within Judaism and are part of the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible.

Jewish tradition recognizes 613 commandments in the Torah. The Ten Commandments hold a prominent place among them, though they don’t summarize every Jewish law.

Did Jesus Replace the Ten Commandments With Two New Ones?

No. Jesus said the greatest commandments were to love God and “love your neighbor as yourself.” He summarized the direction of God’s commands. He wasn’t reducing 10 rules to two easier ones.

Jesus also said He hadn’t come to abolish the Law (the entirety of God’s instructions—including the Ten Commandments), but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17). Christians understand that fulfillment in different ways, but Jesus clearly treated the Law as something more significant than an outdated rulebook.

Romans 13:10 makes a similar point: “Love is the fulfillment of the law.” That line comes from Paul, one of the earliest Christian leaders.