Ten Commandments of Moses
We do not keep the Ten Commandments (old covenant) for the same purpose
that Israel was commanded to keep them. They kept it as a demonstration of faith
in the promise of a Savior who would institute a new covenant. Now, instead we
keep the new covenant of grace.
The new covenant of grace is not absent of elements of the Old Covenant. Like a caterpillar that is transformed into a butterfly, the Old Covenant was transformed into a new and more beautiful covenant. The caterpillar was not destroyed – it was transformed into a new shape. The old covenant (caterpillar) was transformed by Jesus Christ into a new covenant (butterfly) and looks different to those on the grace side of the cross than to Israel on the law side of the cross. We are not subject to the old covenant –
it was transformed. We are now subject to the new covenant.
The Ten Commandments are listed in their completeness two times in the Old Testament in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5:1-22. They are partially listed in the New Testament as well in Matthew 19:17-19; 22:34-40; Luke 10:25-28; Romans 13:8-10.
The Decalogue is another name given for the Ten Commandments by the Greeks. It is literally rendered "The Ten Words". The Decalogue is specifically the Ten Commandments written on stone tablets and given to Moses for the people of Israel.
Exodus 34:11–27
Part of Ten Commandments
11 You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.
12 Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you.
13 For six days you shall labour and do all your work.
14 But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you.
15 Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.
16 Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God commanded you, so that your days may be long and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
17 You shall not murder.
18 Neither shall you commit adultery.
19 Neither shall you steal.
20 Neither shall you bear false witness against your neighbor.
21 Neither shall you covet your neighbor’s wife. Neither shall you desire your neighbor’s house, or field, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
11 Observe what I command you today. See, I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
12 Take care not to make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you are going, or it will become a snare among you.
13 You shall tear down their altars, break their pillars, and cut down their sacred poles
14 (for you shall worship no other god, because the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God).
15 You shall not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to their gods, someone among them will invite you, and you will eat of the sacrifice.
16 And you will take wives from among their daughters for your sons, and their daughters who prostitute themselves to their gods will make your sons also prostitute themselves to their gods.
17 You shall not make cast idols.
18 You shall keep the festival of unleavened bread. For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month of Abib; for in the month of Abib you came out from Egypt.
19 All that first opens the womb is mine, all your male livestock, the firstborn of cow and sheep.
20 The firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem.
No one shall appear before me empty-handed.
21 For six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even in ploughing time and in harvest time you shall rest.
22 You shall observe the festival of weeks, the first fruits of wheat harvest, and the festival of ingathering at the turn of the year.
23 Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel.
24 For I will cast out nations before you, and enlarge your borders; no one shall covet your land when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the year.
25 You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven, and the sacrifice of the festival of the passover shall not be left until the morning.
26 The best of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God.
You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.
27 The Lord said to Moses: Write these words; in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.
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