1
Exodus 20:3
The Ten Commandments in the King James Version
The Ten Commandments stand at the heart of the biblical covenant tradition. In the biblical narrative they are given to Moses for the people of Israel at Mount Sinai after the Exodus. This page presents the wording of Exodus 20:3–17 from the influential 1611 King James Bible.
The King James Version
The numbering below follows the common Protestant/Reformed division. Jewish, Catholic, Lutheran, and other traditions group parts of the passage differently, although they draw on the same biblical material.
2
Exodus 20:4–6
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: 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; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
3
Exodus 20:7
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.
4
Exodus 20:8–11
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: 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: 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.
5
Exodus 20:12
Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
6
Exodus 20:13
Thou shalt not kill.
7
Exodus 20:14
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
8
Exodus 20:15
Thou shalt not steal.
9
Exodus 20:16
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
10
Exodus 20:17
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.
Primary text: Exodus 20:2–17 (KJV). Compare the parallel account in Deuteronomy 5:6–21. UK rights in the Authorised (King James) Version are administered by Cambridge University Press.
Further Discussion
The biblical commandments are historically important, but they also invite criticism. Some are striking moral prohibitions, while others can feel either ritual in focus or morally obvious to later readers.
One obvious question is whether commands such as not killing, not stealing, or not bearing false witness were really new moral discoveries at Sinai. Human societies had rules against murder, theft, and perjury long before the biblical account of Moses. In that sense, part of the Ten Commandments may be less about inventing morality from nothing and more about giving familiar moral boundaries divine authority, memorable form, and covenant status.
Another criticism is that some commandments say relatively little on matters modern readers often regard as central, such as compassion, equality, consent, poverty, abuse of power, or care for the natural world. That gap is one reason later moral traditions, reform movements, and modern rewritings keep trying to restate what a foundational set of commandments ought to emphasise.