The Bible sets out two basic kinds of commandments (Hebrew: mitzvah): unconditional, apodictic commandments (Hebrew hoq) that must never be broken, and case laws (Hebrew: mishpat) which are based on specific situations and contain certain conditions for the law to apply in a case.
The Ten Commandments are apodictic, unconditional laws that maintain their full validity into the New Testament, since Jesus Christ considered them to be one answer to the rich young man’s question: “What must I do to gain eternal life?” While different Christian communities number them differently, based on differences of numbering between the Diaspora Jews who used the Septuagint (the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox numbering of the Commandments) of the Pharisees’ numbering (Jews and Protestants), no one discounts any of these commandments (except in personal life).
These Commandments form a bottom line of moral expectation below which a person can never go with impunity.
Exodus 20:1 And God spoke all these words, saying, 2 “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
3 “You shall have no other gods before me.”
4 “You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 5 you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.”
7 “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.”
8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work;”
10 “But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates; 11 for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it.
12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the LORD your God gives you.”
13 “You shall not kill.”
14 “You shall not commit adultery.”
15 “You shall not steal.
16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is y”(Exo 20:1-17).
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