What Are the 10 Commandments in the Bible?

Quick Answer: The Ten Commandments, often called the Decalogue, are the ten laws God gave Moses at Mount Sinai. You can read them in Exodus 20:1-17 and again in Deuteronomy 5:6-21. Put simply, the Decalogue commandments tell us to worship only God, avoid idols, respect His name, keep the Sabbath, and honor our parents. Then they rule out murder, adultery, theft, lying, and coveting.

What Are the Ten Commandments? The Full List

So what are the Ten Commandments, word for word? Interestingly, God doesn’t open with a rule. He opens by reminding Israel who He is: “I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage” (Exodus 20:2, KJV). Rescue comes first, and the rules come after. That order shapes how we should read the Decalogue commandments.

If you’ve been looking for the full 10 commandments Decalogue list, here it is in the order most Protestant and Orthodox churches follow:

1. Worship God alone. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3).
2. No idols. God forbids carving images to bow down to (Exodus 20:4-6).
3. Respect His name. Don’t use the name of the LORD “in vain” (Exodus 20:7).
4. Keep the Sabbath. “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8-11).
5. Honor your parents. “Honour thy father and thy mother” (Exodus 20:12).
6. Don’t murder. The KJV reads, “Thou shalt not kill” (Exodus 20:13).
7. Stay faithful in marriage. Adultery is off the table (Exodus 20:14).
8. Don’t steal (Exodus 20:15).
9. Tell the truth about others, rather than “bear false witness” (Exodus 20:16).
10. Guard against coveting your neighbor’s house, spouse, or anything else he owns (Exodus 20:17).

About number six: the Hebrew word is ratsach, and it points to unlawful killing, not every death. That’s why newer translations like the ESV and NIV say “You shall not murder.”

What Is the Decalogue, and Why Is It Called That?

The word sounds fancy, but it isn’t complicated. Deka is Greek for “ten,” and logos means “word.” Put them together, and you get “ten words.” So the Decalogue commandments are, quite literally, ten words.

That also explains why the Ten Commandments are called the Decalogue. Oddly enough, the Hebrew Bible never labels them “commandments” at all. Instead, it calls them aseret hadevarim, “the ten words” (Exodus 34:28; Deuteronomy 4:13; 10:4). Jewish translators carried that phrase into Greek when they produced the Septuagint, and over time it shrank into one word. Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish writer from the first century, even titled one of his books On the Decalogue.

We love that the original name is “words.” Rules can feel cold and distant. Words, on the other hand, are something a person speaks to someone they know.

Where the Decalogue Commandments Come From: Mount Sinai and the Stone Tablets

About three months after leaving Egypt, the Israelites camped below Mount Sinai (Exodus 19:1), which Deuteronomy calls Horeb (Deuteronomy 5:2). God spoke the Decalogue commandments out loud to the entire crowd. It shook them so badly that they begged Moses to do the listening for them next time (Exodus 20:18-19).

Moses then climbed the mountain and stayed forty days and forty nights (Exodus 24:18). He came back down with “two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God” (Exodus 31:18). The tablets even had writing on both sides (Exodus 32:15).

Then everything fell apart. While Moses was gone, the people built a golden calf. When he saw it, he was furious and smashed both tablets at the foot of the mountain (Exodus 32:19). Thankfully, God didn’t give up on His people. He told Moses to cut two new stones, and He wrote the same words a second time (Exodus 34:1).

That second set went into the ark of the covenant (Deuteronomy 10:5). Hundreds of years later, at the dedication of Solomon’s temple, the ark still held “nothing… save the two tables of stone” (1 Kings 8:9).

Exodus 20 vs. Deuteronomy 5: Two Versions, Small Differences

Read Exodus 20 and then Deuteronomy 5, and you’ll notice they’re nearly identical. Nearly. Deuteronomy comes about forty years later, when Moses repeats the list to a new generation getting ready to enter Canaan. Both passages contain the same Decalogue commandments, but a few small changes show up:

• In Exodus, the Sabbath line says “Remember.” Deuteronomy says “Keep.”
• Each version gives its own reason for the Sabbath. Exodus looks back to creation, when God rested (Exodus 20:11), while Deuteronomy looks back to slavery: “remember that thou wast a servant” (Deuteronomy 5:15).
• Honoring parents picks up an extra promise in Deuteronomy: “that it may go well with thee” (Deuteronomy 5:16).
• Coveting gets reshuffled. Exodus lists the house before the wife, but Deuteronomy puts the wife first, uses a different verb for the house, and adds “his field” (Deuteronomy 5:21).

None of this changes the meaning. If anything, it shows Moses preaching the same words to people in a brand-new season of life.

How Churches Number the Decalogue Ten Commandments

This is where things get a little messy, in a good way. Every tradition agrees on the words themselves. What they don’t agree on is where one commandment stops, and the next one starts. As a result, the Decalogue 10 commandments carry different numbers depending on the church:

Catholic and Lutheran churches follow a pattern Augustine popularized. Even those two split, coveting differently. Catholics follow Deuteronomy’s order, wife and then goods, while Lutherans follow Exodus, house and then wife. Jewish tradition goes its own way and counts God’s opening line as the first “word.”

What Is the Sixth Commandment of the Decalogue?

Now, back to that curveball. Numbering is the one place where the Decalogue commandments genuinely differ between churches. So what is the sixth commandment of the Decalogue? For Protestant, Orthodox, and Jewish readers, it’s “Thou shalt not kill” (Exodus 20:13). Catholics and Lutherans, however, count “Thou shalt not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14) as the sixth.

That means two friends from different churches can mention “the sixth commandment” and mean completely different things. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, for instance, teaches on the sixth commandment under chastity and faithfulness in marriage, in paragraphs 2331–2400.

Two Tablets, Two Great Loves

Have you ever wondered why there were two tablets? Scripture never explains how God split the words between them. Jewish tradition often imagines five on each stone. Many Christians picture it differently, with the commands about God on one tablet and the commands about people on the other.

Jesus seems to point that way too. A lawyer once tried to trap Him by asking which commandment was greatest, and His answer came in two parts. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart” (Matthew 22:37, from Deuteronomy 6:5) came first. Next came “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22:39, from Leviticus 19:18). Everything else, He said, hangs on those two.

That’s really the key to the commandments of the Decalogue. They aren’t a random checklist. Instead, they show what loving God and loving people looks like on an ordinary day.

How Jesus and the Apostles Used the Commandments

The prophets were quoting the Decalogue commandments long before the New Testament. Hosea charged Israel with “swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery” (Hosea 4:2). Meanwhile, Jeremiah confronted people who would “steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely,” then stroll into the temple as if nothing had happened (Jeremiah 7:9).

Jesus said He came “not to destroy, but to fulfil” the law (Matthew 5:17). Then He pushed the commandments further than anyone expected. Murder, He taught, begins with anger (Matthew 5:21-22), and adultery begins with a lustful look (Matthew 5:27-28). When a rich young man asked about eternal life, Jesus also walked him through several of the commandments (Matthew 19:18-19).

The apostles kept the list in circulation. Paul named five of the commandments, then said love fulfills them all (Romans 13:9-10). James warned that breaking one law makes you guilty of the whole thing (James 2:10-11). And in Ephesians, Paul reminded children that honoring parents is “the first commandment with promise” (Ephesians 6:2).

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Do Christians Still Keep the Ten Commandments?

For most Christians, the moral core of the Decalogue commandments still stands. After all, nearly every one of them shows up again in the New Testament. The big exception people argue about is the Sabbath. Many churches gather on Sunday, the day Jesus rose, while Seventh-day Adventists and some others still keep Saturday. Paul’s advice was simple: don’t judge one another over “sabbath days” (Colossians 2:16).

It also helps to remember why God gave the law in the first place. Paul said, “by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Romans 3:20), and he called it a “schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ” (Galatians 3:24). Put another way, the commandments hold up a mirror. Grace is what helps you change what you see in it.

God promised something deeper than stone, too. Through Jeremiah, He said He would write His law “in their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:33). Paul later picked up that image, describing believers as letters written, “not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart” (2 Corinthians 3:3).

Here’s one more detail worth knowing. The Ten Commandments aren’t the only laws in the Torah. Jewish tradition counts 613, a number the Talmud credits to Rabbi Simlai (Makkot 23b). Even so, the Decalogue has always stood out as the part God spoke aloud and wrote on stone Himself.

What the Commandments Look Like in Everyday Relationships

Once you bring the Decalogue commandments home, they get personal fast. Three of them in particular tend to show up around the dinner table.

Take the fifth. Honoring your parents sounds simple until you’re caring for an aging dad, navigating a blended family, or carrying hurt from childhood. Honor doesn’t require pretending the past never happened. If family relationships feel tangled, biblical family counseling can help you work out what honor looks like in your situation.

Then there’s the command against murder, number six in Protestant numbering. Most of us assume we’re safe on that one. Jesus, however, linked it straight to anger and insults (Matthew 5:22), which sets a much harder standard. If your temper keeps wounding the people you love, our anger management counseling brings Scripture to that struggle.

Finally, the command against adultery protects the trust that holds a marriage together. As Jesus made clear, faithfulness starts in the heart long before any outward choice. If your marriage has lost that trust, biblical marital counseling gives you a place to work toward honesty and healing.

Image suggestion: A family sitting together at a kitchen table with an open Bible.
Alt text: Family reading the Decalogue commandments together at home

Frequently Asked Questions

Why were the Ten Commandments written on stone?

According to Exodus 31:18, God wrote the Decalogue commandments “with the finger of God” on stone tablets. Stone signaled permanence and authority, a covenant built to last. Later, though, the prophets and apostles described something deeper: God writing His law on human hearts (Jeremiah 31:33; 2 Corinthians 3:3).

How many commandments are in the Bible in total?

Jewish tradition counts 613 commandments in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. The Talmud credits that number to Rabbi Simlai (Makkot 23b), who counted 248 positive commands and 365 negative ones. Among all of them, the Decalogue commandments stand out as the summary God spoke at Sinai.

What is the greatest commandment?

Jesus actually named two. First, love God with all your heart, soul, and mind (Matthew 22:37, from Deuteronomy 6:5). Second, love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:39, from Leviticus 19:18). According to Jesus, the whole law and the prophets hang on these two commands.

Which commandment comes with a promise?

Only one of the ten carries a promise: honoring your father and mother. Exodus 20:12 promises long life in the land, and Deuteronomy 5:16 adds “that it may go well with thee.” Centuries later, Paul called it “the first commandment with promise” (Ephesians 6:2).

What happened to the original stone tablets?

Moses broke the first set after the golden calf incident (Exodus 32:19). God then wrote the words on a second set, which Moses placed inside the ark of the covenant (Deuteronomy 10:5). Scripture never tells us what finally happened to the ark, so nobody knows where the tablets ended up.

Faith in Action Put Biblical Wisdom Into Practice Understanding God’s commandments is an important first step. Living them out in difficult family relationships, marriage challenges, and struggles with anger can be harder. Our biblical counselors offer Scripture-based guidance to help you navigate these challenges and grow in your faith, online or in person in Columbia, SC. Explore Our Biblical Counseling Services → Scripture-Based Guidance · Faith · Stronger Relationships