People who are far from the Church and have no experience of spiritual life often see in Christianity only prohibitions and restrictions. This is a very primitive view.

In Orthodoxy everything is harmonious and natural. The spiritual world, as well as the physical world, has its own laws, which, like the laws of nature, cannot be violated; this will lead to great damage and even disaster. Both physical and spiritual laws are given by God Himself. We constantly encounter warnings, restrictions and prohibitions in our daily lives, and not a single normal person would say that all these regulations are unnecessary and unreasonable. The laws of physics contain many dire warnings, as do the laws of chemistry. There is a well-known school saying: “First water, then acid, otherwise big trouble will happen!” We go to work - they have their own safety rules, you need to know and follow them. We go out into the street, get behind the wheel - we must follow the rules of the road, which contain a lot of prohibitions. And so it is everywhere, in every area of ​​life.

Freedom is not permissiveness, but the right to choose: a person can make the wrong choice and suffer greatly. The Lord gives us great freedom, but at the same time warns of dangers on the path of life. As the Apostle Paul says: Everything is permissible for me, but not everything is beneficial(1 Cor 10:23). If a person ignores spiritual laws, lives as he wants, regardless of moral standards or the people around him, he loses his freedom, damages his soul and causes great harm to himself and others. Sin is a violation of very subtle and strict laws of spiritual nature; it primarily harms the sinner himself.

God wants people to be happy, to love Him, to love each other and not to harm themselves and others, therefore He gave us commandments. They express spiritual laws, they teach how to live and build relationships with God and people. Just as parents warn their children about danger and teach them about life, so our Heavenly Father gives us the necessary instructions. The commandments were given to people back in the Old Testament, we talked about this in the section on Old Testament biblical history. New Testament people, Christians, are required to keep the Ten Commandments. Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill(Mt 5:17) says the Lord Jesus Christ.

The main law of the spiritual world is the law of love for God and people.

All ten commandments say this. They were given to Moses in the form of two stone slabs - tablets, on one of which the first four commandments were written, speaking about love for the Lord, and on the second - the remaining six. They talk about attitude towards neighbors. When our Lord Jesus Christ was asked: What is the greatest commandment in the law?- He replied: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind: this is the first and greatest commandment; the second is similar to it: love your neighbor as yourself; on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets(Mt 22:36-40).

What does it mean? The fact is that if a person has truly achieved true love for God and others, he cannot break any of the Ten Commandments, because they all talk about love for God and people. And we must strive for this perfect love.

Let's consider ten commandments of God's law:

1. I am the Lord your God; Let you have no other gods before Me.
2. You shall not make for yourself an idol or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth below, or that is in the water under the earth; do not worship them or serve them.
3. Do not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
4. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy; Six days you shall work and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God.
5. Honor your father and your mother, so that your days on earth may be long.
6. Dont kill.
7. Don't commit adultery.
8. Don't steal.
9. Do not bear false witness against your neighbor.
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house; You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.

First commandment

I am the Lord your God; Let you have no other gods before Me.

The Lord is the Creator of the Universe and the spiritual world. He is the First Cause of everything that exists. Our entire beautiful, harmonious and very complex world could not have arisen by itself. Behind all this beauty and harmony is the Creative Mind. To believe that everything that exists arose on its own, without God, is nothing less than madness. The madman said in his heart: “There is no God”(Ps 13:1), says the prophet David. God is not only the Creator, but also our Father. He cares and provides for people and everything created by Him; without His care the world could not exist.

God is the Source of all good things, and man must strive for Him, for only in God does he receive life. We need to conform all our actions and actions to the will of God: whether they will be pleasing to God or not. So, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God (1 Cor 10:31). The main means of communication with God are prayer and the Holy Sacraments, in which we receive the grace of God, Divine energy.

Let us repeat: God wants people to glorify Him correctly, that is, Orthodoxy.

For us there can be only one God, glorified in the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and we, Orthodox Christians, cannot have other gods.

Sins against the first commandment are:

• atheism (denial of God);
• lack of faith, doubt, superstition, when people mix faith with unbelief or all kinds of signs and other remnants of paganism; those who say: “I have God in my soul” also sin against the first commandment, but do not go to church and do not approach the Sacraments or do so rarely;
• paganism (polytheism), belief in false gods, Satanism, occultism and esotericism; this includes magic, witchcraft, healing, extrasensory perception, astrology, fortune telling and turning to people involved in all this for help;
• false opinions contrary to the Orthodox faith, and falling away from the Church into schism, false teachings and sects;
• renunciation of faith, relying on one’s own strength and on people more than on God; this sin is also associated with lack of faith.

Second Commandment

You shall not make for yourself an idol or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth below, or that is in the water under the earth; do not worship them or serve them.

The second commandment prohibits worshiping a creature instead of the Creator. We know what paganism and idolatry are. This is what the Apostle Paul writes about the pagans: calling themselves wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image similar to corruptible man, and birds, and four-legged creatures, and reptiles... They replaced the truth of God with a lie... and served the creature instead of the Creator(Rom 1, 22-23, 25). The Old Testament people of Israel, to whom these commandments were originally given, were the custodians of faith in the True God. It was surrounded on all sides by pagan peoples and tribes, and in order to warn the Jews not to adopt pagan customs and beliefs under any circumstances, the Lord establishes this commandment. Nowadays there are few pagans and idolaters among us, although polytheism and the worship of idols exist, for example, in India, Africa, South America, and some other countries. Even here in Russia, where Christianity has been around for over a thousand years, some are trying to revive paganism.

Sometimes you can hear accusations against the Orthodox: they say, veneration of icons is idolatry. The veneration of holy icons cannot in any way be called idolatry. Firstly, we offer prayers of worship not to the icon itself, but to the Person who is depicted on the icon - God. Looking at the image, we ascend with our minds to the Prototype. Also, through the icon, we ascend in mind and heart to the Mother of God and the saints.

Sacred images were made back in the Old Testament at the command of God Himself. The Lord commanded Moses to place golden images of Cherubim in the first mobile Old Testament temple (tabernacle). Already in the first centuries of Christianity, in the Roman catacombs (meeting places of the first Christians) there were wall images of Christ in the form of the Good Shepherd, the Mother of God with raised hands and other sacred images. All these frescoes were found during excavations.

Although there are few direct idolaters left in the modern world, many people create idols for themselves, worship them and make sacrifices. For many, their passions and vices became such idols, requiring constant sacrifices. Some people have been captured by them and can no longer do without them; they serve them as if they were their masters, because: whoever is defeated by someone is his slave(2 Pet 2:19). Let us recall these idols of passion: gluttony, fornication, love of money, anger, sadness, despondency, vanity, pride. The Apostle Paul compares serving the passions with idolatry: covetousness... is idolatry(Col 3:5). Indulging in passion, a person stops thinking about God and serving Him. He also forgets about love for his neighbors.

Sins against the second commandment also include passionate attachment to any business, when this hobby becomes a passion. Idolatry is also the worship of any person. Many people in modern society treat popular artists, singers, and athletes as idols.

Third Commandment

Do not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

To take the name of God in vain means in vain, that is, not in prayer, not in spiritual conversations, but during idle conversations or out of habit. It is an even greater sin to pronounce the name of God in jest. And it is a very serious sin to pronounce the name of God with the desire to blaspheme God. Also a sin against the third commandment is blasphemy, when holy objects become the subject of ridicule and reproach. Failure to fulfill vows made to God and frivolous oaths invoking the name of God are also violations of this commandment.

The name of God is holy. It must be treated with reverence.

Saint Nicholas of Serbia. Parable

One goldsmith sat in his shop at his workbench and, while working, constantly took the name of God in vain: sometimes as an oath, sometimes as a favorite word. A certain pilgrim, returning from holy places, passing by the shop, heard this, and his soul was indignant. Then he called out to the jeweler to go outside. And when the master left, the pilgrim hid. The jeweler, not seeing anyone, returned to the shop and continued working. The pilgrim called out to him again, and when the jeweler came out, he pretended to know nothing. The master, angry, returned to his room and began to work again. The pilgrim called out to him for the third time and, when the master came out again, he stood silently again, pretending that he had nothing to do with it. The jeweler furiously attacked the pilgrim:

- Why are you calling me in vain? What a joke! I'm full of work!

The pilgrim answered peacefully:

“Truly, the Lord God has even more work to do, but you call on Him much more often than I call on you.” Who has the right to be angry more: you or the Lord God?

The jeweler, ashamed, returned to the workshop and from then on kept his mouth shut.

Fourth Commandment

Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy; Six days you shall work and do all your work, and the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God.

The Lord created this world in six days and, having completed creation, blessed the seventh day as a day of rest: consecrated it; for in it he rested from all His works, which God created and created(Genesis 2, 3).

In the Old Testament, the day of rest was the Sabbath. In New Testament times, the holy day of rest became Sunday, when the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead is remembered. This day is the seventh and most important day for Christians. Sunday is also called Little Easter. The custom of honoring Sunday comes from the times of the holy apostles. On Sunday, Christians must attend the Divine Liturgy. On this day it is very good to partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ. We dedicate Sunday to prayer, spiritual reading, and pious activities. On Sunday, as a day free from ordinary work, you can help your neighbors or visit the sick, provide assistance to the infirm and elderly. It is customary on this day to thank God for the past week and prayerfully ask for blessings on the work of the coming week.

You can often hear from people who are far from the Church or have little church life that they do not have time for home prayer and visiting church. Yes, modern people are sometimes very busy, but even busy people still have a lot of free time to often and for a long time talk on the phone with friends and relatives, read newspapers, and sit for hours in front of the TV and computer. Spending their evenings like this, they do not want to devote even a very short time to the evening prayer rule and read the Gospel.

People who honor Sundays and church holidays, pray in church, and regularly read morning and evening prayers, as a rule, manage to do much more than those who spend this time in idleness. The Lord blesses their labors, increases their strength and gives them His help.

Fifth Commandment

Honor your father and your mother, so that your days on earth may be long.

Those who love and honor their parents are promised not only a reward in the Kingdom of Heaven, but even blessings, prosperity and many years in earthly life. To honor parents means to respect them, to show obedience to them, to help them, to take care of them in old age, to pray for their health and salvation, and after their death - for the repose of their souls.

People often ask: how can you love and honor parents who do not care for their children, neglect their responsibilities, or fall into serious sins? We don’t choose our parents; the fact that we have them like this and not some others is God’s will. Why did God give us such parents? In order for us to show the best Christian qualities: patience, love, humility, the ability to forgive.

Through our parents, God gave us life. Thus, no amount of caring for our parents can compare with what we received from them. Here is what St. John Chrysostom writes about this: “Just as they gave birth to you, you cannot give birth to them. Therefore, if in this we are inferior to them, then we will surpass them in another respect through respect for them, not only according to the law of nature, but also primarily before nature, according to the feeling of the fear of God. The will of God decisively demands that parents be revered by their children, and rewards those who do this with great blessings and gifts, and punishes those who violate this law with great and grave misfortunes.” By honoring our father and mother, we learn to honor God Himself, our Heavenly Father. Parents can be called co-workers with the Lord. They gave us a body, and God put an immortal soul in us.

If a person does not honor his parents, he can very easily come to disrespect and deny God. At first he does not respect his parents, then he stops loving his Motherland, then he denies his mother Church and gradually comes to denying God. All this is interconnected. It is not without reason that when they want to shake the state, to destroy its foundations from within, they first of all take up arms against the Church - faith in God - and the family. Family, respect for elders, customs and traditions (translated from Latin - broadcast) hold society together and make people strong.

Sixth Commandment

Dont kill.

Murder, taking the life of another person, and suicide are among the most serious sins.

Suicide is a terrible spiritual crime. This is rebellion against God, who gave us the precious gift of life. Committing suicide, a person leaves life in a terrible darkness of spirit, mind, in a state of despair and despondency. He can no longer repent of this sin; there is no repentance beyond the grave.

A person who takes the life of another through negligence is also guilty of murder, but his guilt is less than that of one who deliberately encroaches on the life of another. Also guilty of murder is the one who contributed to this: for example, a husband who did not dissuade his wife from having an abortion or even contributed to it himself.

People who shorten their lives and harm their health through bad habits, vices and sins also sin against the sixth commandment.

Any harm caused to one's neighbor is also a violation of this commandment. Hatred, malice, beatings, bullying, insults, curses, anger, gloating, rancor, malice, unforgiveness of insults - all these are sins against the commandment “thou shalt not kill”, because everyone who hates his brother is a murderer(1 John 3:15), says the word of God.

In addition to bodily murder, there is an equally terrible murder - spiritual, when someone seduces, seduces a neighbor into unbelief or pushes him to commit a sin and thereby destroys his soul.

Saint Philaret of Moscow writes that “not every taking of life is a criminal murder. Murder is not unlawful when life is taken by office, such as: when a criminal is punished with death by justice; when they kill the enemy in the war for the Fatherland.”

Seventh Commandment

Don't commit adultery.

This commandment prohibits sins against the family, adultery, all carnal relations between a man and a woman outside of legal marriage, carnal perversions, as well as unclean desires and thoughts.

The Lord established the marriage union and blessed carnal communication in it, which serves childbearing. Husband and wife are no longer two, but one flesh(Genesis 2:24). The presence of marriage is another (though not the most important) difference between us and animals. Animals do not have marriage. People have marriage, mutual responsibility, duties to each other and to children.

What is blessed in marriage, outside of marriage is a sin, a violation of the commandment. The conjugal union unites a man and a woman in one flesh for mutual love, birth and raising of children. Any attempt to steal the joys of marriage without mutual trust and the responsibility that a marriage implies is a serious sin, which, according to the testimony of Holy Scripture, deprives a person of the Kingdom of God (see: 1 Cor 6:9).

An even more serious sin is the violation of marital fidelity or the destruction of someone else's marriage. Cheating not only destroys a marriage, but also defiles the soul of the one who cheats. You can’t build happiness on someone else’s grief. There is a law of spiritual balance: having sowed evil, sin, we will reap evil, and our sin will return to us. Shameless talking and failure to guard one's feelings are also violations of the seventh commandment.

Eighth Commandment

Don't steal.

A violation of this commandment is the appropriation of someone else's property - both public and private. Types of theft can be varied: robbery, theft, deception in trade matters, bribery, bribery, tax evasion, parasitism, sacrilege (that is, appropriation of church property), all kinds of scams, fraud and fraud. In addition, sins against the eighth commandment include all dishonesty: lies, deception, hypocrisy, flattery, sycophancy, people-pleasing, since by doing this people are trying to acquire something (for example, the favor of their neighbor) dishonestly.

“You can’t build a house with stolen goods,” says a Russian proverb. And again: “No matter how tight the rope is, the end will come.” By profiting from the appropriation of someone else's property, a person will sooner or later pay for it. A sin committed, no matter how insignificant it may seem, is sure to return. A man familiar to the authors of this book accidentally hit and scratched the fender of his neighbor's car in the yard. But he didn’t tell him anything and didn’t compensate him for the damage. After some time, in a completely different place, far from his home, his own car was also scratched and they fled the scene. The blow was struck on the same wing that he damaged his neighbor.

The passion of love of money leads to violation of the commandment “Thou shalt not steal.” It was she who led Judas to betrayal. The Evangelist John directly calls him a thief (see: John 12:6).

The passion of covetousness is overcome by cultivating non-covetousness, charity towards the poor, hard work, honesty and growth in spiritual life, for attachment to money and other material values ​​always stems from lack of spirituality.

Ninth Commandment

Do not bear false witness against your neighbor.

With this commandment, the Lord prohibits not only direct false testimony against one’s neighbor, for example in court, but also all lies spoken about other people, such as slander, false denunciations. The sin of idle talk, so common and everyday for modern man, is also very often associated with sins against the ninth commandment. In idle conversations, gossip, gossip, and sometimes slander and slander are constantly born. During an idle conversation, it is very easy to say unnecessary things, to divulge other people’s secrets and secrets entrusted to you, and to put your neighbor in a difficult position. “My tongue is my enemy,” people say, and indeed our language can bring great benefit to us and our neighbors, or it can do great harm. The Apostle James says that with our tongues we sometimes we bless God and the Father, and with it we curse men, created in the likeness of God(James 3:9). We sin against the ninth commandment not only when we slander our neighbor, but also when we agree with what others say, thereby participating in the sin of condemnation.

Judge not lest ye be judged(Matthew 7:1), the Savior warns. To condemn means to judge, to boldly admire a right that belongs only to God. Only the Lord, who knows the past, present and future of man, can judge His creation.

The story of St. John of Savvaitsky

One day a monk from a neighboring monastery came to me, and I asked him how the fathers lived. He answered: “Okay, according to your prayers.” Then I asked about the monk who did not enjoy good fame, and the guest told me: “He has not changed at all, father!” Hearing this, I exclaimed: “Bad!” And as soon as I said this, I immediately felt as if in delight and saw Jesus Christ crucified between two thieves. I was about to worship the Savior, when suddenly He turned to the approaching Angels and said to them: “Cast him out, - this is the Antichrist, for he condemned his brother before My Judgment.” And when, according to the word of the Lord, I was driven out, my robe was left at the door, and then I woke up. “Woe is me,” I then said to the brother who came, “I am angry this day!” "Why is that?" - he asked. Then I told him about the vision and noticed that the mantle I left behind meant that I was deprived of God’s protection and help. And from that time I spent seven years wandering through the deserts, not eating bread, not going under shelter, not talking to people, until I saw my Lord, who returned my mantle to me.

That's how scary it is to make a judgment about a person.

Tenth Commandment

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house; You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.

This commandment prohibits envy and grumbling. It is impossible not only to do evil to people, but even to have sinful, envious thoughts against them. Any sin begins with a thought, with a thought about something. A person begins to envy the property and money of his neighbors, then the thought arises in his heart to steal this property from his brother, and soon he puts sinful dreams into action.

Envy of the wealth, talents, and health of our neighbors kills our love for them; envy, like acid, eats away at the soul. An envious person has difficulty communicating with others. He is delighted by the sorrow and grief that befell those whom he envied. This is why the sin of envy is so dangerous: it is the seed of other sins. An envious person also sins against God, he does not want to be content with what the Lord sends him, he blames his neighbors and God for all his troubles. Such a person will never be happy and satisfied with life, because happiness depends not on earthly goods, but on the state of a person’s soul. The kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:21). It begins here on earth, with the correct spiritual structure of man. The ability to see the gifts of God in every day of your life, to appreciate them and thank God for them is the key to human happiness.

The Ten Commandments of God in Orthodoxy play an extremely important role - they are the basis of the entire Christian faith and represent the entire essence of Christian law. The prophet Moses received them on Mount Sinai after, by the will of the Lord, he led the entire people of Israel out of Egypt, where they were in slavery.

Basics of Orthodoxy: why one should fulfill the commandments

God gave the 10 biblical commandments or Decalogue to the Jewish people during their journey from slavery to the land given by the Lord - Canaan.

Initially, the Lord Himself inscribed them on two tablets, but later they were rewritten by the hand of Moses.

The law can be divided into two parts:

• the first 4 commandments are about man’s relationship with the Lord;
• the last 5 are about the relationship between a person and his neighbors.

God's law is difficult for people with a sinful nature to obey. However, this is something that we urgently need to strive for. What is it for?

Just as the force of attraction, gravity, etc. operate, spiritual laws exist and operate. Violation of them leads to the threat of carnal and spiritual death.

People are not outraged by the existence of gravity, and they know that if you jump from a height, you can fall to your death. The same goes for prolonged immersion in water or falling into fire. Why does keeping the Lord's law cause so much outrage?

Atheists live as if the spiritual world does not exist, but this does not exempt them from the application of spiritual rules. If a person does not believe in the power of gravity, this does not mean that it does not exist and that violating it will lead to death. The same applies to the Decalogue - violation will lead first to spiritual death, and then to carnal death.

Many people view the Decalogue as a set of rules for going to heaven after death. But this is wrong, since the goal is to prove to a person that he cannot cope on his own and needs God’s help and Jesus Christ. No one can do this thoroughly on their own, but only with God's help. We all need the death of Jesus Christ and divine forgiveness with atonement. One should ask the Lord for help in fulfilling the law and pray in repentance if it has been broken.

Important! The 10 biblical commandments are necessary for anyone who considers himself a true Christian to know, because according to them he can check his life path and compare it with the one that the Lord has prepared.

Moses with the commandments given to him

God's commandments and their interpretation

The Creator wrote 10 rules on 2 stone tablets and passed them on to Moses. He remained on the mountain for another 40 days, and then went down to the people, but what he saw there was terrible - the Jews cast themselves a calf from gold and made it their god. Moses, in anger, threw the tablets to the ground and broke them.

After the people were punished, Moses went back up the mountain and wrote them down again. You should consider them all in detail for a better understanding.

First

“I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before Me."

What does this mean? Our Lord is the true and living God, who is one in the entire Universe and beyond. It is He who is the Creator of the whole world and all creations that live and exist by Him alone. The Christian religion is a religion of monotheism. There is no place in it for a host of gods, as there was in Greek, Roman and Persian culture.

There is only one God. All power is concentrated in the Creator, but outside of Him it simply does not exist. He is the beginning of time and its end, He is the beginning of time and the end. The movement of the sun across the sky, the movement of a drop on a leaf, the movement of an ant and the running of a leopard - in all this there is God’s hand and all this is possible only thanks to Him.

Despite the many names, the Lord is one. In Scripture He calls himself Yahweh (I Am Who I Am), Jehovah (I Will Be), God Almighty, Elohim (God), Adonai (Lord), Hosts (Lord of Hosts). But these are just characteristics, character traits. He is the source of strength, both spiritual and material, therefore only one should come to Him.

According to this sin:

• polytheism;
• magic;

Second

“You shall not make for yourself an idol or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth below, or that is in the water under the earth.”

For murder, a person will suffer a terrible punishment. Moreover, it should be borne in mind that you can kill with simple words. You should watch not only your hands, but also your tongue.

Seventh

"Thou shalt not commit adultery."

The Heavenly Father created the family at the beginning of existence. His idea is a man and a woman belonging to each other. There is no room for a third.

Despite heretical traditions about Adam's second wife Lilith, God created only Adam and Eve. Therefore, husband and wife should take care of each other, love and not look/think about others.

Family is not always easy, but a person must follow the law.

Read about family in Orthodoxy:

Eighth

"Thou shalt not steal."

The most important law in the field of human relations is that you should not take something that belongs to another. This applies to both small things and some large things.

The Heavenly Father gives to everyone according to his will, so if a person steals, he shows disrespect not only for the work of his neighbor, but also for God. If he thinks that someone has more of something and this is unfair, then this also expresses disrespect and disobedience to God's will.

Ninth

“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”

A lie spoils everything and sooner or later it is revealed. You should not be deceitful towards others or yourself. Deception does not bring anything good, and the motives for it are almost always sinful.

The Almighty always knows the truth and sooner or later it will be revealed to people. This law allows you to preserve a person’s spiritual health.

Tenth

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house or anything that your neighbor has.”

This rule has something in common with rule 8, but it is more detailed. In the original, God speaks about a wife, about cattle, about property.

Even the mere desire to have something that is not yours is considered a sin. Desire is the seed of sin, and... If not uprooted in time, it will grow into a huge tree.

Commandments of Christ

It should be understood that the listed 10 laws and 9 Gospel commandments are different from each other, although it is necessary to fulfill them all.

The first were received by Moses from the Lord as the basis of the law for the Jews who became God's people. It was they who were created to separate the Jews from all other peoples who lived according to their own laws. Thanks to them, the Jews became a separate people of God at the dawn of the formation of religion. They were called upon not only to create a society and a state, but also to protect people from sin.

The commandments of Christ, given by him in the Sermon on the Mount in chapters 5-7 of the Gospel of Matthew, are somewhat different.

Sermon on the Mount

They talk about the spiritual world, and almost never touch upon the carnal. Christ in them gives a definition of what a Christian soul should be, how a believer should develop in God.

Important! The commandments of Christ in no way deny the basic law (Decalogue), but on the contrary, they continue it. If the Lord forms society and relationships between people by law, then Christ speaks about the inner world of man and its formation.

Watch a video about Jesus' commandments

(Institute of Spirituality. 2. Torah and Ten Commandments. From the trilogy “Five Lives on Earth. Evolution of Souls”)

A person’s life is a long chain of intentions and actions that provide him with food and shelter, bringing pleasure and suffering.

The line of a person’s destiny is not determined by random events, as most people believe, but it is not determined either.

The Creator tries to help sensitive souls with inspiration, creates obstacles in the path of sinners, hoping that they will leave evil ways, and punishes evildoers, but does not force them to do this and not otherwise, for the descendants of Adam were given free will by Him, and, finding themselves in different situations, they must make their own choices - make their own decisions and act, taking responsibility for their actions.

A person’s fate is largely determined by his actions, committed both in this incarnation and in previous ones.

The soul will encounter many temptations on its earthly path and many problems, which is why the Creator gave people rules - commandments.

First, the commandments were given to Adam, but his descendants ignored them, forgot about the Creator and became so corrupted that “God repented that he had created man on Earth, and regretted it in His heart.” After ten generations, He decided to stop His experiment and destroy humanity. It was then that the Creator saw Noah on the planet, who had received faith in Him from his direct ancestors, and He decided to revive humanity from Noah.

The Creator gave Noah commandments that he was to teach his descendants, and vowed not to destroy humanity anymore. But the descendants of Noah ignored these commandments, like the descendants of Adam, and believed in many gods, among whom were the sun, moon and stars, wind and clouds, animals and birds and even insects... They began to make themselves wooden, stone and clay idols their gods, worshiped them and made human sacrifices, passing on their faith to subsequent generations. Such a distortion of reality was disgusting to the Creator, and He divided the people filled with pride, giving them many different languages, so that peoples who spoke one language could hardly understand those who spoke other languages; but people remained idolaters, only their idols now became different.

Relying on Noah as a teacher and preacher for future generations did not justify itself; The Creator needed a large people who believed in Him, fulfilled His commandments and, through their way of life, demonstrated to all the peoples of the planet in all generations an example of righteousness - a people ready to devote themselves to Him and bring everyone the news about Him, a people of priests with whom He could enter into an Alliance for eternity. But the Creator did not find a single person on the planet from whom He could create a people for Himself, for all people were then idolaters.

Ten generations passed after Noah, and then the Creator saw a young man named Abram, through reasoning, who came to the realization of the existence of the Creator of all things, the One God, and felt His Presence in his soul. And the Creator revealed himself to Abram and decided to make Himself a people from him.

The Creator enlightened Abram and gave him much spiritual knowledge, which was then written down in the Torah. The Creator changed his name to Abraham and promised to produce from him a large people dedicated to Him, God.

The Creator also gave Abraham's son Isaac and grandson Yaakov-Israel knowledge about Himself and the moral laws that they should teach their descendants, and confirmed the promise given to Abraham.

The sons of Yaakov-Israel did not have a level of soul development comparable to that of Abraham; only Joseph stood out among them. So that the unsuccessful experience with the descendants of Noah would not be repeated, the Creator decided to form His people differently - by leading the descendants of Jacob-Israel through trials and hardships, in conditions of isolation and enslavement in the country of Egypt. The Creator did not hide His plan from Jacob-Israel, saying to him: “I am the Omnipotent of your father; do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you a great nation there. I will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you out...”

Two centuries later, Israel, which had become a large nation in Egypt, found itself under the heavy oppression of the Egyptian pharaoh and loudly cried out to the God of the forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob with the hope that the Almighty would hear their cry and free them, as promised.

And then came the moment of liberation, when God chose Moses as His prophet and, having performed many miracles, including the “ten plagues of Egypt,” led the children of Israel out of Egypt and, for the first time in the history of mankind, revealed His Glory to people through these events.

The Almighty revealed Himself to the liberated sons of Israel and announced His commandments from Mount Sinai. “And Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet the Almighty, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. And Mount Sinai was all smoking because God had descended on it in fire; and smoke rose from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain shook violently. And the sound of the shofar became stronger and stronger. Moses spoke, and the Almighty answered him with a voice. And God descended to Mount Sinai, and called Moses to the top of the mountain... And the Almighty spoke all these words, saying: “I am God your Almighty, who brought you out of the land of Egypt from the house of slavery...”.”

Then God communicated His commandments to the children of Israel and He concluded His Alliance with this people for eternity, and the people responded with agreement: “We will do everything that God said.”

Thus, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob-Israel became God’s chosen people, which should set an example of righteousness to all peoples living on the planet, so that all people in all generations would know about the One God and follow His commandments, both in actions and in intentions. “You are My witnesses, the word of God, you are my servant, chosen by Me so that they would know, and believe Me, and understand that God is Me: there was no one before Me, and there will be no one after Me!”

A person endowed with freedom of choice achieves true pleasure by choosing what is prescribed by the Creator, what his conscience, his good advisor, tells him; by this a person corrects himself and brings him closer to the Ideal.

In the selfishness or altruism of an act - sin or salvation.

The Ten Commandments of the Creator are the axioms of the Moral Law, which underlies the Union concluded by the Creator with His people.

Fulfillment of the Commandments gives the souls of people the Highest Light, indicating the path of goodness and justice and affirming the priority of the spiritual principle over the material.

The transition to fair, highly moral governance according to the truth and the Law of the Creator, taking into account the level of spiritual development of everyone, will certainly one day lead to the establishment of harmony on Earth, similar to that in Heaven.

TEN COMMANDMENTS OF THE CREATOR

COMMANDMENT ONE:
I AM YOUR ALMIGHTY GOD, WHO BROUGHT YOU OUT OF THE COUNTRY OF EGYPT, FROM THE HOUSE OF SLAVERY.

COMMANDMENT TWO:
LET YOU HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE MY FACE. DO NOT MAKE YOURSELF AN IDOLM OR ANY IMAGE OF ANYTHING THAT IS IN THE HEAVEN ABOVE, OR THAT IS ON THE EARTH BELOW, OR THAT IS IN THE WATER BELOW THE EARTH. DO NOT WORSHIP THEM OR SERVE THEM, FOR I AM THY ALMIGHTY GOD, A JEALOUS GOD, PUNISHING THE CHILDREN FOR THE GUILTY OF THE FATHERS TO THE THIRD AND FOURTH GENERATIONS OF THOSE WHO HATE ME, AND SHOWING MERCY TO A THOUSAND GENERATIONS OF THOSE WHO LOVE AND KEEP ME M MY COMMANDMENTS.

COMMANDMENT THREE:
DO NOT SPEAK THE NAME OF GOD, YOUR ALMIGHTY, IN VAIN, FOR GOD WILL NOT LEAVE WITHOUT PUNISHMENT ONE WHO SPEAKS HIS NAME IN VAIN.

COMMANDMENT FOUR:
OBSERVE THE SABBATH DAY TO SANCTIFY IT. WORK FOR SIX DAYS AND DO ALL YOUR WORK. AND THE SEVENTH DAY, THE SATURDAY - TO GOD YOUR ALMIGHTY: YOU SHALL NOT DO ANY WORK, NEITHER YOU, NOR YOUR SON, NOR YOUR DAUGHTER, NOR YOUR Servant, NOR YOUR maidservant, NOR YOUR CATTLE, NOR YOUR STRANGER WHO IS WITHIN YOUR GATES. FOR IN SIX DAYS GOD CREATED THE HEAVEN, AND THE EARTH, AND THE SEA, AND EVERYTHING THAT IS IN THEM, AND HE RESTED ON THE SEVENTH DAY, THEREFORE GOD BLESSED THE SABBATH DAY AND SACRED IT.

COMMANDMENT FIFTH:
HONOR YOUR FATHER AND YOUR MOTHER, SO THAT YOUR DAYS MAY BE LEGENDED ON THE EARTH WHICH GOD YOUR ALMIGHTY IS GIVING TO YOU.

COMMANDMENT SIX:
DONT KILL.

SEVENTH COMMANDMENT:
DO NOT commit adultery.

COMMANDMENT EIGHTH:
DON'T STEAL.

COMMANDMENT NINE:
DO NOT REVIEW YOUR NEIGHBOR WITH YOUR FALSE WITNESS.

TENTH COMMANDMENT:
DO NOT COVE YOUR NEIGHBOR'S HOUSE; YOU SHOULD NOT COVE YOUR NEIGHBOR'S WIFE, OR HIS MANservant, OR HIS maidservant, OR HIS BULL, OR HIS DONKEY, OR ANYTHING THAT YOUR NEIGHBOR HAS.

“God spoke these words to all your congregation from the mountain, from the fire, the cloud and the darkness, with a loud voice, and continued no more; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone, and gave them to me,” Moses later reminded the people.

These commandments, declared to the children of Israel - the people chosen by God, are addressed to all living on planet Earth - rich and poor, those with power and influence and those without - as a moral ideal to which everyone should strive.

In His commandments, the Creator personally addresses man on His own behalf, no matter at what time he arrives on Earth, for for all generations the Almighty is the same and His Law is the same; and He made His Alliance with the children of Israel for eternity.

Moses explained to the people the meaning of the commandments and obligations that they assume for themselves and their descendants by agreeing to the agreement proposed by the Creator - the Union of God, later also called the Covenant. Moses “took the Book of Covenant and read it to the people. And they said: “We will do everything that God has spoken and listen to His words!”

The commandments carved on the FIRST TABLET are the laws that define man’s duties towards the Creator.

THE FIRST COMMANDMENT is the main one, in it the Creator declares Himself and obliges man to know about His existence and His absolute power and to always, under any circumstances, believe in Him.

The first commandment demonstrates to man the Justice and Mercy of the Supreme Personality - God, who addresses himself directly to man, taking into account man's capabilities and his problems.

God knows the world of man's ideas, and He tries to influence his morality through the conviction and demonstration of His Power and Holiness, as well as the delightful harmony of the world He created.

In the First Commandment, the Creator says that He manifested Himself on Earth through events related to His chosen people, on whom He relies as His representative in the human community and on whose loyalty He counts.

The liberation of a people formed under conditions of slavery, who preserved the knowledge of their forefathers about the One God, the miracles that accompanied the exodus from Egypt, and the subsequent donation of the Ten Commandments and the Torah were the moments of the highest revelation of the Creator to people in the entire history of mankind.
The Creator is ready to help those who keep Him in their souls and save them.

THE SECOND COMMANDMENT, pronounced by the Creator, prohibits having false ideas about God in prayers and service. She warns a person not to invent any gods for himself, not to believe in them and not to pray to them, so that everyone firmly understands that God is the only One, One and Indivisible, and that there are no other gods in the world He created.

In fulfillment of the Second Commandment, the Creator forbids the worship and service of statues and images, be they statues or icons, reflecting images of the material world or the imaginary, including the faces of holy people living or dead or heavenly angels, for He alone is the God of man, the All-Powerful of man, Whom a person must fear and obey Whose Law he fulfills, thereby serving Him; but He does not have a bodily image, He is incorporeal.

“...lest you become corrupted and make for yourselves graven images, images of any idol in the form of a man or a woman... - Moses explained to the people, - lest you be tempted to worship... and serve what God, the Almighty, has created is yours".

The Creator is not indifferent to the actions and intentions of man and is jealous, He demands to strictly observe His Law and turns away from those who ignore Him, and troubles and misfortunes befall them; and the sinners who hate Him, passing on their bad example to their children and grandchildren, will be punished by wars, hostility or poverty for several generations.

But to those who love Him and keep His commandments, God shows mercy endlessly, in all generations.

In fact, the Second Commandment prohibits believing in false ideas and fabrications about the Creator, to which immature souls are susceptible, easily inclined towards polytheism and idolatry.

Anyone who breaks the Second Commandment should be considered a pagan, an idolater.

THE THIRD COMMANDMENT spoken by the Creator forbids using His name in attempts to pass off lies and untruths as truth and truth; He will not forgive anyone who swears falsely in His name.

Since a person can be mistaken, the Creator warns against taking His Name in vain and forbids swearing by Him or referring to His authority unless absolutely necessary, arising in exceptional cases.

The FOURTH COMMANDMENT, pronounced by the Creator, requires separating one day of the week from the rest; On this day it is forbidden to work or force anyone to work, even livestock, and food should be prepared in advance.

This is a holiday dedicated to the Creator of the universe and man and the One who provided people with everything necessary for a blessed life.

On this day, a person devotes his thoughts to the One God, rejoices in His love for His devotees, studies His Torah and glorifies His greatness and Mercy in prayers, while realizing his immaturity, the sinfulness of his desires, intentions and actions, as well as the enormous distance separating the qualities his soul from the qualities of the Holy Ideal.

By observing the Fourth Commandment, a frivolous and forgetful person is forced every week to recognize that the world has a Creator, and is inspired by this knowledge, and his soul is filled with the joy and enthusiasm He bestows.

“...I gave My Sabbaths to them so that they would be a sign between Me and them, so that they would know that I am God who sanctifies them,” the Creator explains in the Torah. “The Sabbath is an everlasting sign of the covenant between Me and the children of Israel.” He who ignores this commandment neglects all His commands: “And you will keep the Sabbath, for it is holy to you... the soul of everyone who works on the Sabbath will be cut off from his people.”

Those who ignore the Fourth Commandment do not experience the joy of life given to those who recognize the Creator and keep His commandments.

Requiring one day a week to be set aside free from any work, the Fourth Commandment implies that on the remaining days of the week a person must work intensively in order to complete all assigned work in six days.

The Sabbath day erases before God the differences between masters and workers, between the educated and the illiterate, leaving only one difference - in the recognition or non-recognition of the Creator and His commandments.

Pagans who deny the One Creator are unable to understand how refusing to work can be serving God.

If God's chosen people did not keep the Fourth Commandment from generation to generation, they would dissolve among other nations, and all the Ten Commandments would disappear from the world of people.

THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT, spoken by the Creator, commands children to respect their parents from childhood until their last days.

By listening to their parents, children learn about the One God and comprehend the Divine wisdom of the Moral Law; This is how a child is raised and moral standards and responsibilities are instilled in him.

By following this commandment, children fulfill their duty by providing parents with the opportunity to fulfill their responsibility - to nurture the next generation in piety and morality, while simultaneously improving and making an important contribution to the development of human society.

The one who ignores the Fifth Commandment and neglects the instructions of his parents, of course, if they are not immoral, the one who leaves his parents in old age without attention and care takes sin on his soul and shortens his life on Earth.

The life of peoples who disrespect the older generation and their past is not long; such peoples degenerate.

The fifth commandment is carved on the first tablet, which indicates its great importance.

The commandments carved on the SECOND TABLE are laws that define a person’s duties towards other people.

Unlike the first five commandments, which contain explanations and warnings, there is nothing at all incomprehensible in these commandments, and therefore they are extremely short.

Personal experience tells a person what exactly is unpleasant for him, what harms him - this is exactly what the Creator demands not to do in relation to other people.

THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT, pronounced by the Creator, prohibits the deliberate taking of a person’s life, regardless of his age and gender.

The Creator sends the souls of people to Earth, and only He has the right to take them back at His discretion.

Refusal to help, leading to the death of a person, as well as deliberately spoken words that caused sudden death, can be regarded by the Creator as intentional murder.

One who is hiding from punishment for premeditated murder and who has not repented cannot escape Heavenly judgment and fair punishment, but during his lifetime he risks being subjected to a premature violent death initiated by Heaven.

Tribes, peoples and states that allow ritual killings of people and reprisals against believers in the Creator are challenging Him and will disappear from the face of the planet.

Those who take the lives of the children of Israel because they belong to the Creator’s chosen people commit a particularly serious crime.

THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT, pronounced by the Creator, proclaims the holiness of marriage; it prohibits a man and woman connected by marriage from cheating on each other.

This commandment also prohibits seducing another man's wife and committing violence against a married woman.

THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT spoken by the Creator forbids stealing. First of all, this refers to the theft of people - an act very common in the pagan world.

If the Sixth Commandment prohibits encroaching on a person’s life, and the Tenth commandment prohibits taking from him and appropriating what belongs to him, this commandment prohibits encroaching on man’s freedom, granted to him by the One who created him in His own likeness.

One person does not have the right to take away the freedom of another, by force holding him back and forcing him to work for himself in order to implement his plans.

Only a court can restrict the freedom of a person who has committed a crime or is about to commit it.

With this commandment, the Creator declares the holiness of freedom from slavery, granted by Him to every person.

The Creator prohibits taking away years of a person’s life not only by murder, but also by stealing them from him, depriving him of the opportunity to realize the goal of his earthly path. “And whoever kidnaps a person and sells him - and the kidnapped person was in his hands - will be put to death,” warns the Creator.

In fact, the Eighth Commandment places responsibility for turning a person into a slave and violence against people.

THE NINTH COMMANDMENT, voiced by the Creator, prohibits bearing false testimony about a person.

Unlike the previous three commandments inscribed on the second tablet, it does not apply to actions, but to the utterance of words.

By the ninth commandment, the Creator places responsibility on man for using the gift that distinguishes him from other living beings, the gift of speech, for evil. If deliberate false testimony leads to the death of a person, then the Creator regards this as a crime equivalent to committing intentional murder.

If intentional false testimony results in the deprivation of a person's liberty, then this crime is equivalent to theft of a person and the forcible deprivation of his liberty.

The ninth commandment also applies to the disclosure of confidential information without the permission of the person to whom it relates - “do not be a gossip among your people,” as well as the spread of rumors that discredit a person, for the Creator knows for what purpose people do this, and will not be forgiven .

THE TENTH COMMANDMENT pronounced by the Creator, the last, prohibits not only certain actions and words, but also thoughts.

This commandment prohibits plotting evil against another person in order to take possession of what belongs to him.

Only one who is able to analyze and suppress his evil desires can avoid committing evil acts.

Only one who understands the true meaning of the commandments given to him by the Creator, who cares for him, is able to hate his bad egoistic desires and advance in his spiritual development.

The tenth commandment establishes a fundamental prohibition that makes it possible to completely eradicate evil in human society if it accepts the Creator’s requirements for mandatory fulfillment.

In the Ten Commandments, the Creator appeals to reason, declaring His understanding of goodness and justice; The commandments should become a person's responsibility before God and other people.

Fulfillment of the Commandments elevates the dignity of souls embodied in human form on planet Earth; this is the path that brings a person closer to the One who created him in His image and likeness.

The appearance of a person and the qualities of his soul are determined by his attitude to the Commandments in his actions, intentions and desires.

Fulfillment of the Commandments and altruistic actions make an upright ape a man, and strict observance makes him a righteous man.

The Commandments, which establish the concept of righteousness and justice, do not become obsolete and apply to all generations of people.

Whoever neglects the Commandments ignores the Creator and chooses the path of evil and suffering, deprives his life of meaning and cripples his fate.

The body is destined to perish, but the destruction of the soul is the limit of misfortune.

A person whose body is abandoned by his soul is not as dead as a hardened sinner whose soul is abandoned by the Creator and is black as darkness.

Fulfilling the Commandments for the sake of the Creator, who gave them, is not difficult, and by such fulfillment a person acquires the Wisest Guide.

A commandment fulfilled thoughtlessly or accidentally is not merit, and without intention for the sake of the Creator, its words are dead, like a body without a soul.

He who once read the Commandments, but does not repeat or apply them, is like a man “who sows but does not reap.”

Anyone who believes that he is sufficiently righteous and there is no need for him to turn to the Commandments again and again, let him make sure that he not only does not do to others what is unpleasant to himself, but cultivates goodness and performs mercy, and let him remember “that above him is an all-seeing eye, an all-hearing ear, and that all his deeds are written in a book.”

To act according to your conscience means, first of all, to keep the Commandments.

Anyone who has overcome himself before the temptation to commit a sinful act is worthy of the Creator’s reward.

The one who transgresses the Commandments without witnesses, the sin he has committed will pursue and testify against him before the Creator Himself, who reads the truth in the evil one’s heart.

Awareness of the crime committed and sincere repentance is the path to eliminating the consequences of sin.

The one who has eliminated the consequences of his sins, who has the Creator’s commandments both in his heart and in his deeds, has acquired salvation and eternal life.

This is the meaning of the Commandments announced by the Creator and inscribed by Him on the tablets He Himself made, which are material Evidence of the Union of the sons of Israel with God.

“And God said to Moses: “Go up to the mountain and be there; and I will give you the tablets of stone, and the Torah, and the Commandments...” And Moses “went up the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights,” listening and remembering the teachings of the Creator and the detailed instructions that he was to teach his people, who swore to fulfill the Commandments loudly pronounced by God from Mount Sinai, and to observe His Covenant, also known as the Covenant of the Creator.

On the fortieth day, Moses learns from the Creator that the children of Israel, in his absence, cast a golden calf and worship it: “And they exclaimed: this is your god, O Israel, which brought you out of the land of Egypt.” “And Moses turned and began to descend from the mountain, and the two tablets of the Testimony were in his hand, tablets written on both sides... And those tablets were the creation of the Almighty Himself, and the writing on them was the writing of the Almighty, carved on the tablets.”

Coming down from the mountain, Moses sees the people worshiping an idol. They ignored the Second Commandment and the Union and committed perjury: “And I saw that, behold, you sinned before God, our Almighty, you made for yourself a molten calf, you quickly left the path that God showed you. And I grabbed both tablets, and threw them with both hands, and broke them before your eyes ... "

Meanwhile, the majority of the people were pagans in their souls. Assuming that Moses died in the flames on the top of the mountain, in religious impatience, without waiting for the end of the fortieth day, they forced Aaron to cast a figurine of a bull in the image of the Egyptian deity, which, according to their ideas, would replace God, who had not declared Himself since then.

Seeing how Moses, alive and unharmed, glowing after communicating with the Almighty, descended from the mountain and how he broke the tablets in great indignation, the people were afraid. Most admitted their crime and repented, but not all.

Then Moses prayed to God for the people. “And God changed his mind, deciding not to do the evil with which he threatened His people,” and He agreed to inscribe His commandments on new tablets, but this time they were to be made by Moses, who had broken the previous ones.

Moses began to hew new tablets and make the Ark of the Covenant of God to store them. Before ascending the mountain again, he judged the sons of Israel, urged them to do their best to get rid of stubbornness, explained to them that the Creator does not require anything supernatural or impossible from them, and taught them to experience reverence, reverent respect, equal to the fear of the Just and Merciful.

Moses again climbed Mount Sinai and stayed there for forty days and forty nights, listening to the instructions of the Creator and observing His Glory.

The day when Moses descended with new tablets to the people forgiven by the Almighty became the Day of Atonement for the children of Israel.

NEW TABLETS.

The commandments written by the Creator again differed in several clarifications, which is explained by the sin of making the golden calf. Before recalling these changes, it should be noted that the creation of works of art in any genre is not a violation of the Second Commandment, except when they are intended for worship or witchcraft; for example, the cast images of the cherubs - angels on the lid of the Ark of the Covenant were made at the direction of the Creator Himself in accordance with His description attested in the Torah.

On the new tablets in the Second Commandment it is inscribed: “You shall not make for yourself a graven image of any image...”.

In the Fourth Commandment: “You shall keep the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as God your God has commanded you.” Further in this commandment, after the words: “...nor your stranger,” the Creator clarifies: “... so that your male and female servant may rest as you do. And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and God, your Almighty, brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore God your Almighty commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.” Thus, in the Fourth Commandment, the Creator demands that workers be created the same conditions of rest as their master has, and reminds a free man, a master over slaves, that he himself was a slave in Egypt, and would have remained a slave with his descendants if the Almighty had not saved him ; Thus, the Creator commands that the reason for the Sabbath holiday is His miraculous liberation of the people from slavery.

In the Fifth Commandment, the Creator specifies: “...so that your days may be lengthened and that it may be good for you in the land that God, your Almighty, is giving you.”

The Creator connected commandments from the Sixth to the Tenth with the conjunctions “and”, therefore, violation of one of them is equivalent to failure to fulfill all of them.

In addition, in the Tenth Commandment the requirement: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife” is placed in first place.

These are the differences between the Commandments, inscribed on the new tablets placed in the Ark of the Covenant, and which were the Evidence of the Union of the Creator.

In Heaven, where there is no need to satisfy bodily needs in order to survive and where there is no opportunity to commit evil, souls have obligations only to the Creator. For people living on Earth, the Commandments impose obligations both to Him and to other people, and they must become moral obligations for a person to himself.

It only takes one or two generations to deviate from the Commandments, and darkness, spiritual night, will reign on Earth, and the groans and cries of the suffering will be heard, and rivers of human blood will be shed.

The written history of mankind is a description of the tragic consequences of ignoring the Commandments of the Creator.

The years of nurturing the people under the leadership of Moses passed, and already a new generation of the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob stood at the border of the Promised Land, promised to their forefathers. But before fulfilling His Promise, the Creator wants to convey to everyone’s consciousness His requirements, as well as the essence of His blessings to those who fulfill them and terrible curses and punishments to those who ignore them. Through the mouth of Moses, He addresses the people and demands that the text of the Torah be written in black paint on huge white stones, so that everyone understands what they are agreeing to - this is how the Union of the Creator with His chosen people was renewed.

The Almighty had a plan that included the descent into Egypt, the enslavement of the people, and the liberation - exodus. Having seen so many miracles with their own eyes, the people, according to the Creator’s plan, will firmly believe in Him, and will sacredly observe His Union and Commandments, showing an example of righteousness to all the peoples of the planet and passing on their mission to their descendants.

The Creator chose a people for Himself and carried out the plagues of Egypt for the sake of His Glory, in order to be glorified among the nations of the world through the descendants of Israel saved by Him: “And the Egyptians will know that I am God, when I am glorified, having punished Pharaoh, and his chariots, and his horsemen”!

But several generations passed and, against the backdrop of an erroneous interpretation of the reasons for their election and the granting of many blessings to them, the descendants of those saved from Egyptian slavery became proud, began to forget the Commandments, ignore the Union of the Creator and sin by worshiping idols.

More than once or twice, the sons of Israel the Long-suffering disappointed the people; He was very angry with the people, threatening the people through the mouth of His prophets and subjecting them to the most severe punishments - siege, famine, captivity and dispersion among other nations of the planet... but each time He saved the Gracious remnant of Israel from among His faithful sons.

1. I am the Lord your God, and there are no other gods besides Me.

2. Do not make for yourself an idol or any image; do not worship them or serve them.

3. Do not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

4. Six days you shall work and do all your work, but the seventh is a day of rest, which you shall dedicate to the Lord your God.

5. Honor your father and mother, that you may be blessed on earth and live long.

6. Thou shalt not kill.

7. Do not commit adultery.

8. Don't steal.

9. Do not bear false witness.

10. Don't covet anything that belongs to others.

FIRST COMMANDMENT

I am the Lord your God, and there are no other gods besides Me. (Exodus 20:2-3)

This means: there is one God, and there are no other gods besides Him alone. He is the Most High, Almighty, All-Wise and All-Good God. From Him all creation came, through Him it lives and to Him it will return. He is the Holy, Mighty and Immortal God, Unchanging, peaceful, beginningless and endless. He has no need or discontent for anything. All ascend to Himcountless lights (The angels who stand before the throne of God are often calleddivine lights . Their number is uncountable) and move around Him. He rests among them, like a motionless axle in a wheel. The axle holds and the wheel rotates.All power is in God (our life , the energy of creation with our hands and thoughts) and there is no power outside of God. And the power of light, and water, and air, and stone is the power of God. The power that makes an ant crawl, a fish swim, and a bird fly is the power of God. The power that makes seeds grow, grass breathe and a person live is the power of God. All power is the property of God, and every creature receives its power from God. God gives everyone as much as He wants and takes it back when He wants. Therefore, when you are looking for strength, look for it only from God, because God is the source of living and great strength, and besides Him, there is no other source. He guides and gives inspiration to do righteous and correct deeds.

All wisdom is in God , and there is neither wisdom nor the slightest knowledge outside of God. Everything that is created was created by God, and God put something of His Wisdom into every creation. Therefore, in order not to sin before God, do not think that God gave wisdom only to man. The horse, the bee, the fly, the swallow, the stork, the tree, the stone, the water, the air, the fire, and the wind have wisdom. The Wisdom of God abides in everything, and nothing could exist without it. That's why, when you seek wisdom, seek it only from God, because God is the source of Living and Great Wisdom. There is no other source besides God.

All goodness is in God. That is why Christ said: “No one is good except God alone.” His goodness lies in His mercy, forbearance, and forgiveness of sinners. God has invested His goodness in every creation. Therefore, every creation of God has God’s goodness. So, even Satan (the devil) has it, it is thanks to her that he wishes himself good and not evil. But out of his stupidity, he wants to achieve good through evil, that is, he thinks that by doing evil to all God’s creations, he can do good for himself.

Oh, how great is the goodness of God, poured out in every creation of God: in stone, in plants, in animals, in fire, in water, in the air, in the wind. All of it is received from God, the Beginningless and Inexhaustible and the Great Source of all virtue. And when you want to grow in virtue, do not look for it anywhere except God. Only He has what you need in abundance. That is why the Lord commands us: " You cannot have other gods besides Me". (Exodus 20:3)

(And we, like blind kittens, pray to pictures with other faces (idols) depicted on them, bowing our heads and kissing the hands of the priests (as if they were Gods to us), who, in serving God, should explain to people the true faith, and not exalt themselves before people before worshiping them, but not God.)

And why do you need other gods if your God is the Lord Almighty?

Is there anyone wiser than God?

God guides you through your righteous thoughts about good for yourself and your neighbor.

Satan controls by setting temptation traps.If you have two gods, know that one of them is the Devil.

You can't serve both God and the devil at the same time just as one ox cannot plow two fields at the same time and one candle cannot burn in two houses at the same time. The ox does not need two owners, because they will tear it to pieces. The forest does not need two suns, because it will burn. The ant does not need two drops of water, because it will drown in them. A child does not need two mothers, because he will be left unattended. And you don’t need two Gods, because you will not be richer, but poorer. Because the more gods there are, the weaker they are. If you have as many gods as people, your gods will be weaker than people, and if you have as many of them as ants, then they will be as weak as ants. So, honor these numerous gods as nothing and, taking a broom, sweep them beyond the threshold of your house. You yourself remain with your one Lord God, who has all the power, all the wisdom and all the kindness, indivisible, inexhaustible and endless. Honor Him alone, worship Him and fear Him.

Oh my God! You own countless creations, but I, Your creation, cannot have a god other than You alone. Dear God! Banish all my empty thoughts and dreams about other gods. Cleanse my soul, sanctify and expand it, and dwell in it, like a King in His chamber. Strengthen, teach, correct and renew me, the One True One. Glory and blessings are due to You, towering above all false deities, like a high mountain above the plain.

SECOND COMMANDMENT

Do not make yourself an idol and no image; do not worship them or serve them.

This means: do not deify creation, do not honor it as the Creator. (all icons and other pictures with the “saints” called by the church, whom people worship, do not have the Power of God. Is there anyone wiser and more powerful than God?)

“You shall not make for yourself a carved or any other likeness of anything that is in the heavens above, on the earth below, or in the waters below the earth. You shall not bow down or serve them, for I am your God, Jehovah, who demands exclusive devotion! (Exodus 20:4 -5)

If you have climbed a high mountain and met the Lord God there, why do you look back at the shallow swampy growth at the foot of the mountain? If a person wanted to see the king and after much effort achieved a meeting with him, will he at this meeting look around and look at the king’s servants and lackeys to the right and left? He can behave this way only in two cases: either he cannot stand the presence of the king and seeks support from those around him; or he sees that the king is unable to help him, and is looking for a stronger patron.

Why can't man stand the presence of the King of God? Isn’t this king his Father? Why is he afraid of meeting his Father? More humane! Didn't God think about you even before you were born? Did He not keep you in your sleep and in your waking life, even when you did not know it? Didn't He think more about you every day than you worried about yourself? Why then are you afraid of Him? Truly your fear is the fear of a sinner. Sin is always fraught with fear. It creates fear “where there is no fear,” where there is no place for it or its consequences. Sin distracts your gaze from the King to the slaves. In their midst, sin is the master himself, feasting among his slaves. But we must remember that the King is more merciful than slaves. Let us not turn away from the merciful King - our Father. The king's gaze will burn away the sin in you just as the sun burns away the microbes in water, and this water becomes pure and drinkable.

Or maybe you think that God cannot help you, and therefore you turn to His servants? To the apostles, for example... But if God cannot help you, then even more so His servants cannot. After all, they themselves are God’s creations and expect help from God. Not a single step is taken by them without the command of God to act. What kind of help do you expect from them? If a thirsty person cannot drink from a mountain stream, how can he get drunk by licking drops of dew in a meadow?

Who deifies a sculpture or a painting? The one who has not known the artist and the carver. He who does not know God and does not believe in Him is doomed to deify things, because it is human nature to deify something.

God, like a sculptor, sculpted mountains and valleys, carved the bodies of animals and plants, He, like an elegant artist, painted meadows and fields, clouds and lakes. He who understands all this glorifies and thanks God as a great Artist and Sculptor, but he who does not know this is forced to worship only the statues and paintings of God.

Diseases of the soul

If a person devotes all his thoughts and all his zeal to his family and does not want to know anything except his family, then his family is a deity for him. And then this is a disease of the soul of the first kind.

If a man devotes all his thoughts and all his zeal to gold and silver and does not want to know anything else, then gold and silver are his deity, to whom he bows day and night, until the night of death finds him doing this and covers him with its darkness. . And this is a disease of the soul of the second type.

If a person directs all his thoughts and all his zeal to be the first among everyone and to be in charge at all costs, so that everyone will glorify and praise him, he considers himself the best among all people and the best among creations, that he has no equal in heaven or on earth, then such a person is his own deity, for whose sake he is ready to do anything. And this is a disease of the soul of the third type.

If someone writes the name of God on paper, or on a tree, or on a stone, or on snow, or on the ground, then honor this paper, and this tree, and this stone, and snow, and earth for the sake of the Most Holy Name of God, written on them. But do not deify that which has this holy name written on it. Or when you have material on which the face of God is depicted, you do not bow to Him, and know that you are not bowing to matter, but to the great and living God, of whom the image reminds. Or when you see the greatness of the heavenly stars at night, you can worship, but not to them - the creation of God's hands, but to the Lord Almighty, the highest of the heavenly stars, the radiance of which reminds you of Him.

Lord, the One Most Merciful! We recognize, acknowledge and praise You alone.

THIRD COMMANDMENT

Do not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

What? Are there those who dare to take in vain the terrible and mysterious name of the Lord God Almighty? When the name of God is pronounced in the sky, the heavens bow in fear, the stars shine brighter, the Archangels and Angels sing: “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts, fill heaven and earth with Your Glory,” and the holy saints of God fall on their faces. How then can mortal lips dare to remember the Most Holy Name of God without spiritual trembling, without deep sighing and longing for God?

“You shall not use the name of your God in an inappropriate manner, for God will not leave unpunished anyone who uses His name in an inappropriate manner” (Exodus 20:7)

When a person lies on his deathbed, no matter what names he calls upon, none of them can make him brave and restore peace of mind. But the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, pronounced at least once, gives courage and brings peace to a person’s soul. The remembrance of this consoling name eases his last breath.

More humane!When you have lost faith in your family and friends and feel lonely in this endless world or tired of a long lonely journey, remember the name of God, and it will become a support for your tired and heavy arms and legs.

Scientist! When you are exhausted over solving a difficult riddle of nature and, having used all the capabilities of your little mind, cannot find the right answer, remember the name of God, the name of the Higher Mind, and the light will illuminate your soul and the riddle will be resolved.

O most wonderful name of God! How omnipotent You are, how beautiful, how sweet! Let my lips be silent forever if they utter it carelessly, uncleanly and in vain.

Parable

One goldsmith, working in his workshop, constantly used the name of God in vain: either as an oath or as a saying. A pilgrim passing through this village heard these words and was extremely indignant. He loudly called the master by name so that he would go outside and hide. And when the master went outside, he found that no one was there. Surprised, he returned to his workshop and continued working. After some time, the wanderer calls him again, and when he comes out, he pretends that he did not call him at all. The very angry master shouted to the wanderer: “Are you tempting me, wanderer, or are you joking when I have so much work to do? You call me, and then pretend that you didn’t call.” The wanderer answers him peacefully: “Truly, God has much more work than you, but you always remember Him in vain, and you are offended at me for distracting you. Who has more reason to be angry - God or you, goldsmiths master?" And the master felt ashamed. He returned to his workshop and from then on kept his mouth shut.

Let the name of the Lord, like an unquenchable lamp, constantly glow in our soul, in our thoughts and hearts, but not touch our tongue without a significant and solemn reason.

Parable

A doctor came to one hospital to practice; he was given an assistant with whom he had to spend time from morning to night, operating and bandaging patients. The assistant had a habit of swearing dirty. He spared no one in his expressions. His dirty swearing did not escape even the God of Hosts. One day the doctor was visited by a friend who came from the city. The doctor invited a friend to attend the operation. The patient's abscess was opened. The guest felt sick at the sight of the terrible wound from which pus was flowing. In addition, the doctor's assistant kept swearing dirty. Unable to bear it, the guest asked: “How can you listen to these vile, blasphemous words?” The doctor replied: “My friend, I’m used to the fact that there are dirty wounds and that pus often flows from the wounds. If there is a purulent abscess on the patient’s body, then the pus becomes visible thanks to the wound, and this abscess can be cured. But there is pus in the soul man, and it is possible to detect it only when it flows through the lips. My assistant, swearing blasphemously, reveals to us the accumulated evil that pours out of his soul like pus from a wound."

O All-Merciful God, even toads do not scold You, but man scolds You! Why does a toad have a better larynx than a human? O All-Patient One, why do snakes not blaspheme You, but man does? Why is the snake closer to the angels than man? O Most Beautiful One, why does the wind, which girdles the earth in a cross shape, not turn in vain to Your name, but man does? Why is the wind more God-fearing than man?

O Most Wonderful Name of God, how omnipotent you are, how beautiful and how sweet you are! Let my lips be silent forever if they utter it carelessly, uncleanly and in vain.

FOURTH COMMANDMENT

Six days you shall work and do all your work, but the seventh is a day of rest, which you shall dedicate to the Lord your God.

This means: for six days the Lord created the world, and on the seventh he rested from His works. Six days are located in time, and therefore they are transitory and restless, but the seventh belongs to eternity, therefore it is enduring and restful. The creation of the world is a manifestation of God in time, but this does not mean that He ceased to be at this time in Eternity. “This mystery is great,” and it is indecent to speak fussily about it. It requires prayer and reverence. Therefore, this mystery is not accessible to everyone, but only to God’s chosen ones. The chosen ones of God are in time in body, but in their spirit they are in the Unapproachable Light, in which there is eternity, peace and bliss.

Not everyone knows, or rather few people know, that the time period of Divine time differs from the earthly time of Man. And church ministers do not explain this, and biblical translators into the languages ​​of different peoples do not write about this, and the creators and interpreters of these books mention them in passing, without explaining, in order to attract as many people as possible to their religions with religious rites and customs, instilling fear and enriching themselves with material things. , but not by the Wisdom of God. If you study the Bible (or other biblical writings), it becomes clear that the age set for us is about 1000 years, but for God it is only one day. Therefore, we are not talking specifically about the seventh day, it was established for the first people living on earth, further in the “new Testament” it is explained by Jesus that “you can turn to God on any day and in any position of the body,” that is, standing, lying down , sitting, soaring in the air, floating in water... - in any way, and you can work without harming yourself (and therefore God) on any day. But the day of rest itself was left in the scriptures, designating it as “seventh” according to the writings of the “Old Testament”. If you like what you do, then your work becomes your rest. Creative people: artists, writers, masters of any direction of creative work, are happy to create their masterpieces on any day, and it’s not for nothing that people call many works with the phrase “given from God,” because they see this or that value of the creator and the need for humanity.

And for you, brother, it is good for you to work, and after work it is good for you to rest. It is useful to work, because God blessed the work; it is useful to rest, because God blessed the rest after work. Let your work be Creativity, since you are a child of the Creator, therefore do not destroy, but create!

Consider your work as collaboration with God. And then you will not do evil, but good. Before doing anything, think: would God bless you for this work or not? Because the most important thing is to remember that the Lord does all things; we are only His helpers. And if the work we are starting is blessed, then we must complete it sparing no effort. Your heart and lungs work day and night and do not get tired. Why can't your hands work too? And your kidneys work without rest day and night. Why can’t your brain work too?

Parable about laziness and rest

In one city there lived a rich merchant with three sons. He was a hardworking merchant and through his labors he made a huge fortune. When they asked him why he needed so much goodness and so many worries, he answered: “My only concern is that my sons be provided for and that they do not have the same worries that their father had.” Hearing this, his sons became so lazy that they abandoned all activities, and after the death of their father they began to spend the accumulated fortune. The father's soul wanted to see from the other world how his beloved sons lived without hassle and worries. God allowed this soul to go to his hometown. So the father’s soul comes home and knocks on the gate, but some stranger opens it. Then the merchant asked about his sons, and they told him that his sons were in hard labor. The habit of idly spending time in drunkenness and amusements first brought them to lewdness, and then led to the final ruin of the house and death. The father sighed bitterly and said: “I thought I had created heaven for my children, but I myself sent them to hell.” And the distraught father walked throughout the city, addressing all the parents: “Don’t be, people, like I was. Because of blind love for my children, I personally sent them to fiery hell. Don’t leave, brothers, any property to your children. Teach them to work and leave this as an inheritance for them. Distribute the rest of your wealth to orphans before your death. There is nothing more dangerous and soul-destroying than leaving children as an inheritance of a large fortune. Be sure that the devil, and not the Guardian Angel, rejoices most at a rich inheritance. Because the devil catches people most easily and quickly through wealth." Therefore, work and teach your children to work. And when you work, don’t look at work only as a means of getting rich. See in your work the beauty and pleasure that labor gives as a blessing from God. Know that you are degrading this blessing if you seek only material gain from labor. Such work, devoid of blessings, does not benefit us, and does not bring any benefit.

Rest on the seventh day! How to relax? Know that rest is only from God and in God. Nowhere else can righteous rest be found in this world. For this world is as restless as a whirlpool. Dedicate the rest of the seventh day exclusively to God, and then you can truly rest and be filled with new strength. Everything good in your work on any day is for the good of God.

On the seventh day, think about God, talk about God, read about God, listen about God and pray to God.

Parable
One atheist did not honor God’s commandment to celebrate Sunday and continued Saturday labors on Sunday. On Sunday, when the whole village was resting, he worked in the field with his cattle, which he also did not give rest. On Wednesday of the following week he was completely exhausted, and his cattle were also exhausted. And now, when the whole village was working in the field, he lay at home in exhaustion, anger and despair. Brothers, do not follow the example of this atheist, so as not to ruin your strength, health, and soul. Therefore, work with God for yourself for six days with love and pleasure, diligence and reverence, and dedicate the seventh day entirely to God. Truly I tell you from my experience that correct work and the correct celebration of Sunday spiritualize a person, make him younger and make him strong again after the labor he has endured.

THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT

Honor your father and mother, may you be blessed on earth and have long life.

This means: before you knew anything about the Lord God, your parents knew about it. And this is enough to bow to them and give praise and honor. Bow down and respectfully thank everyone who knew the Highest Good in this world before you.

One rich Indian youth traveled with his retinue through the Hindu Kush valley. In the valley he met an old man grazing goats. The poor old man bowed his head as a sign of respect and bowed low to the rich young man. The young man quickly jumped off his elephant and prostrated himself on the ground before the old man. The elder was surprised at this action of the young man, and all his servants were surprised. The young man said this: “I bow to your eyes, which before mine saw this light, the work of the hands of the Most High, I bow to your lips, which before mine uttered His holy name, and I bow to your heart, which before mine trembled at the joyful discovery of the Father of all people on earth. “The King of Heaven and the Lord of all.”

Honor your father and your mother, because your path from birth to this day is ensured by the efforts of your parents and their suffering. They accepted you even when all your friends turned away from you, weak and unclean. They will accept you when everyone else rejects you. And when everyone throws stones at you, your mother will throw wild flowers. The Father accepts you, although he knows all your shortcomings. But your friends will reject you, even if they only know your virtues. Know that the tenderness with which your parents receive you belongs to the Lord, who receives His creation as His children. Just as a spur makes a horse run faster, your guilt towards your parents makes them care about you even more.

Proverbs
One rude and bad man rushed at his father and, blinded, plunged a knife into his chest. And the father, dying, says to his son: “Quickly clean the knife from the blood so that you are not captured and condemned.”

In the Russian steppe, one dissolute son tied his mother to a pole in front of a tent, and in the tent he drank with bad women and friends. The robbers came across them and, seeing the mother tied up, they said that the scoundrels must be punished. But the bound mother raised her voice and thereby warned her unfortunate son that he was in danger. And the son escaped, but the robbers flogged the mother instead of the son.

Son, do not be proud of your knowledge before your unlearned father, because his love is greater than your knowledge.If it were not for him, there would be neither you nor your knowledge.
Daughter, do not be proud of your beauty in front of your hunched mother, because her heart is more beautiful than your face. Both you and your beauty came from her meager womb. Learn, daughters, to honor your father, and through this learn to honor all other fathers on earth.
Practice day and night, son, to honor your mother, for in this way you will learn to honor all other mothers on earth. Truly, children, it is not right to honor only your father and mother, and not notice other fathers and mothers. Your reverence for your parents is necessary for you as a school of respect for all people and all women who give birth in pain and raise their children in labor and suffering. Remember this and live by this commandment so that God will bless you on earth.

THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT

Thou shalt not kill.

This means: God gives life from His Life to every creation, to all created beings. Life is God’s most precious possession, hence, whoever dares to encroach on someone’s life, dares to attack God’s precious possession - the very Life of God. All of us who live today are temporary carriers of the Life of God within ourselves, guardians of God’s precious estate. Therefore, we do not dare and cannot destroy this borrowed Life of God in ourselves and in others.

And this means: first- we have no right to kill;second- We cannot kill life.

Parable
One potter made a vase out of clay, and when careless people broke it, the potter was very upset and demanded compensation for the loss. Man is also made of the same cheap material as a vase, but what is precious about him is that man has a soul, which forms a man from the inside, and the Spirit of God, which gives life to the soul.

So, neither father nor mother have the right to take the life of their children , for it is not the parents who give life to the child, but God through the parents. Parents are a vessel in which God kneads life, and a kind of oven in which God bakes the Bread of Life. But parents do not give life, and therefore, since they do not give, it means they do not have the right to take it away. If parents who work so hard, care and worry about their children do not have the right to take their lives, how can those who accidentally met the children of these parents in this world have this right?

Parable
In America, in the city of Chicago, there lived two neighbors. One of them coveted his neighbor’s wealth, sneaked in at night and cut off his head. Then he took all his money, put it in his wallet and went home. As soon as he went outside, he saw a murdered neighbor who was walking towards him. Only instead of a severed head, the neighbor had the head of a murderer. In horror, the killer crossed to the other side of the street and ran without looking back, but the neighbor with the killer’s head on his shoulders again found himself in front of the runner and walked towards him. The killer, drenched in cold sweat, somehow made it to his house and did not sleep that terrible night. But the next night he again saw his neighbor in front of him with his own head on his shoulders. And this happened every night. Then the killer took the stolen money and threw it into the river. But that didn't help either. The neighbor appeared to him every night. The killer surrendered to the court, admitted his guilt and was sent to hard labor. But that didn't help either. And in prison the murderer saw his neighbor every night with his head on his shoulders. In the end, he begged one old priest to pray for him, a sinner, to God and allow him to receive communion. The priest replied that he must repent before communion. He replied that he repented of killing his neighbor. “That’s not it,” the priest told him. “You just can’t understand and admit that your neighbor’s life is your own life. And by killing him, you killed yourself. That’s why you see your severed head on the body of the murdered man. Thus God gives This is a sign to you that your life, and the life of your neighbor, and all human life together are one and the same life.”
The convict understood this. And he also understood and acknowledged everything else. Then he prayed to God and took communion. And then the spirit of the murdered man stopped haunting him, but he continued to spend days and nights in repentance and prayer and told all the other condemned people about the miracle that had been revealed to him, namely, that a person cannot kill another without killing himself.
Oh, brothers, how terrible are the consequences of murder. If it were possible to describe them to all people, truly there would not be a single one who would raise a hand against someone else's life.

God awakens and irritates the conscience of a murderer so that his own conscience gnaws at him from the inside like a worm gnawing at a tree. The man thrashes and growls and barks like a mad lioness; neither day nor night, the unfortunate person has no peace, neither in the mountains, nor in the field, neither in this life, nor after the grave. It would be better for a person if they opened his skull and a swarm of bees settled in him and stung him from the inside, rather than what his unclean and criminal conscience does to his soul.

Therefore, God commanded people for the sake of their own peace and happiness: “Thou shalt not kill!”

O Lord, Most Kind, how sweet is every commandment of yours, like fresh nutritious milk. O Lord Almighty, save me from evil deeds and a vengeful conscience, so that I glorify and praise You forever and ever. Amen.

SEVENTH COMMANDMENT

Don't commit adultery.

And this means: you cannot have an illegal relationship with a woman. Truly, animals are more obedient to this commandment than many people. For animals enter into communication with each other exactly at the same time and exactly as the Creator predetermined for them. And many people do not recognize either time or order in relationships between men and women.Their minds have been dulled by fornication, so that they do not distinguish between a legal relationship with a woman and an illegal one, just like a person in illness does not distinguish salty from sour. Therefore, you can often hear an adulterer justifying their sin, because they don’t care at all whether it’s their own wife or someone else’s, the right time or the wrong time, it doesn’t matter. Just as if a sick person were to say, when they first put salt in his mouth, then pepper, then sugar: “All of this is equally tasty. These are the same things, with the same taste.” If it were all the same whether you lived lawfully or lawlessly, God would not have commanded the people of Israel through Moses: “You shall not commit adultery.” God gave Adam one wife - Eve. And the men of the eastern countries have sorrows, but at the same time they pray to their Allah. Slavic men have mistresses. Do you think the sincerity of their prayers in appeals to God for forgiveness?

The meaning put into the prayer of forgiveness shows God that Man has realized his mistake, which he will never make or repeat.

Adultery destroys a person physically and mentally.

Adulterers are usually twisted like a bow from a harp, and before old age they end their lives in wounds, torment and insanity. The most terrible and most vile diseases that science knows are diseases that are spread in large numbers by human adultery. The body of an adulterer is constantly in disease, like a stinking puddle, from which everyone runs with a pinched nose and great disgust. But if the evil ended with those who committed this evil, the matter would be less terrible. But it becomes terrible when you think that the children of adulterers inherit the illnesses of their parents: sons and daughters, and even grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Truly, diseases from adultery are a scourge for people, like the phylloxera worm for grapes. Because of these diseases, humanity is declining, degrading, and more of all from these diseases than from any others.

Their appearance is quite terrible when we think about those bodily torments and ugliness, rotting and disintegration of the body from prodigal diseases. But their appearance becomes even more terrible, to the point of nervous fever, when we see how spiritual abomination grows from bodily deformity, as the consequences of this prodigal evil. Therefore, brothers, God, who knows everything and foresees everything, gave a commandment against adultery, against fornication, against extramarital affairs between people, against slavery. (We are not slaves, but children of God our Father). Especially young people must hide and hide from this evil, like from a poisonous snake. Because a nation in which young people have given themselves over to debauchery and illegal bodily life has no future.

Over time, such a people will have a generation of weak people until they are captured by a healthier people, who will easily subjugate them. Anyone who is not stupid can read the ancient history of peoples and learn from this what terrible punishments befall adulterous tribes and peoples.

The Holy Scripture describes the end of the two cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, in which not even ten righteous and pure people could be found. For this, God sent a hail of fire and brimstone upon them, so that both cities were walled up together, as if in a tomb.

In Southern Italy there is still a place called Pompeii, a once rich and luxurious city, but now miserable ruins where people gather and, seeing them, sigh in fear and horror. The history of Pompeii, in short, was this: wealth brought this city to such an immoral and prodigal life that cannot be remembered since the creation of the world. And God’s punishment came upon him unexpectedly. One day, Mount Vesuvius near Pompeii opened up and a volcano erupted from there, and fiery lava with ash and stones covered the city of Pompeii with all its inhabitants, just as they cover the dead in graves.

May Almighty God help you, brothers, not to get lost and not to take the slippery and dangerous path of adultery. May I. Christ the Guardian help you maintain peace and love in your home. May the Mother of God teach your sons and daughters Her Divine chastity, so that their bodies and souls are not stained by sin, but pure and bright, so that the Holy Spirit may be with them, instructing them and enriching them only with what is Divine, what is from God.

THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT

Don't steal.

And this means: do not offend your brother by disrespecting his property. Do not treat him as foxes and mice do, if you consider yourself greater than animals. The fox steals, not knowing the law about theft, and the mouse gnaws the barn, not knowing that he is harming someone. Both the fox and the mouse know only their own needs, but do not understand the loss of others. It is not given to them to know this, but it is given to you. Therefore, you are not forgiven what the mouse and the fox are forgiven. Your benefit must always be below the law, and your benefit must not harm your brother.

Brother, only those who do not know steal, in other words, those who do not know the following two truths.

First truth- something that a person cannot steal,and another- that a person cannot gain benefit through theft.

How is this possible? - many people who don’t know will ask and be surprised. Here's how: our Universe has many eyes. She really is all filled with eyes, like a plum tree with white flowers during flowering. People see and feel a certain number of these eyes, but they do not see a larger number and do not even know about their existence. First of all, the sun is the first such celestial eye, as well as the stars. But besides the sun and stars, there are also millions and millions of many-eyed spirits who, without closing their eyes, watch what is happening on every centimeter of the earth. How then can a thief steal without anyone seeing and without it being discovered? You can't put your hand in your pocket without a lot of witnesses seeing it. Even less do you have the opportunity to put your hand in someone else’s pocket without alarming millions of higher powers; and this is the first truth.

Another truth is that a person cannot benefit through theft. Because what benefit will it be if so many eyes have seen it, and the theft will still be detected? When the theft is discovered and the thief is identified, the name “thief” will remain for him until his death among his neighbors. There are thousands of ways in which the heavenly powers expose a thief.

Parable (don't steal)
In one Arab city, the unrighteous merchant Ismail traded. Every time he weighed a product to customers, he always underweighted it by a few grams. Due to this deception, his wealth increased greatly. But his children were sick, and he spent a lot on doctors and medicine. And the more he spent on the treatment of children, the more he again obtained from his customers by deception. But what he stole from his customers was all taken away by the illness of his children.

One day, when Ismail was in his shop and was very worried about his children, the sky opened up for a moment. He raised his eyes to the sky and saw that something unusual was happening there. Angels stand around huge scales on which they measure all the benefits that God gives to people. The turn has come to Ismail’s family, and Ismail sees how the Angels, giving health to his children, put less on the cup of health than needed, and instead put a weight on the scales. Ismail became angry and wanted to shout indignantly at the Angels, but one of them turned to face him and said: “Why are you angry? This measure is correct. We give your children a weight that weighs as much as you steal from your customers. And so we do.” the truth of God." Ismail was shocked by the answer and began to bitterly repent of his grave sin. And from that time Ismail began not only to weigh correctly, but also to give beyond measure. And his children recovered.

This is how, brothers, a stolen thing always reminds a person that it was stolen and not his.

If it's not yours, it won't be yours. If you take someone else’s, you will lose yours, which is more valuable than someone else’s.

Parable
A certain young man stole a watch and wore it for about a month. After a month had passed, he returned the watch to the owner, confessed his crime and told him that every time he took the watch out of his pocket and wanted to know the time, he heard it ticking: “We are not yours; thief".

Lord God knows that theft makes both of them unhappy. And the one who stole, and the one from whom it was stolen. And so that people, His children, would not be unhappy, the Wise Lord gave this commandment: do not steal.

We thank You, Lord God, for this commandment, which we really need for the sake of our peace and happiness.

THE NINTH COMMANDMENT

Don't bear false witness.

And this means: don’t lie to yourself or others. Don’t lie even in your kitchen. When you lie to yourself, you know you are lying. When you tell a lie about another, he also knows that you are telling a lie about him. When you exalt yourself and boast in front of people, people don’t know, but You yourself know that you are giving false information about yourself. If you constantly repeat some untruth about yourself, people will still know that you are telling a lie. You yourself can begin to believe in your own lies, and the lie can become the truth for you. And you will get used to lies, like a blind man gets used to darkness.When you tell lies about another person, that person knows that you are lying. This is the first witness against you. And you yourself know that you are lying to him. Thus, you yourself are a second witness against yourself. And God is the third witness. And know that one of the three witnesses will convict you before the whole world.

This is how God rebukes false witness against one's neighbor.

Parables (don't lie)
In one village there lived two neighbors, Luka and Ilia. Luke was angry with Elijah because Elijah was a more prosperous person than Luke, who was a drunkard and lazy. Tormented by envy, Luke declared in court that Elijah had spoken blasphemous speeches against the king. Elijah defended himself as best he could and finally waved his hand and said: “Let God Himself reveal your lies against me.” But the court sentenced Elijah to prison,and Luke returned home. When he was already close

Ten Commandments of God

And God spoke to Moses all these words, saying (book of Exodus, chapter 20):

1. I AM THE LORD THY GOD; LET YOU HAVE NO OTHER GODS BUT ME.

Sins against this commandment: atheism, superstition, fortune telling, turning to “grandmothers” and psychics.

2. DO NOT MAKE YOURSELF AN IDOLM OR ANY IMAGE OF ANYTHING THAT IS IN THE HEAVEN ABOVE, OR THAT IS ON THE EARTH BELOW, OR THAT IS IN THE WATER BELOW THE EARTH; DO NOT WORSHIP OR SERVE THEM.

In addition to gross idolatry, there is also a more subtle one: passion for acquiring money and various property, gluttony, pride. " Covetousness is idolatry"(epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Colossians, chapter 3, article 5).

3. Do not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

In vain means, without need, in empty and vain conversations.

4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy; You shall work for six days, and do all your work in them; and the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God.

In the Christian Church, it is not Saturday that is celebrated, but Sunday. In addition, other holidays and fasts must be observed (they are marked in the church calendar).

5. Honor your father and your mother, so that it may go well with you and that your days on earth may be long.

6. don't kill.

This sin also includes abortion, striking, hatred of one’s neighbor: “ Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer"(1st Council Epistle of the Apostle John the Theologian, Chapter 3, Art. 15). There is spiritual murder - when someone seduces his neighbor into unbelief and sins. " Fathers who do not care to give a Christian education to their children are child killers, murderers of their own children"(St. John Chrysostom).

7. Do not commit adultery.

Sins against this commandment: fornication (carnal love between people who are not in marriage), adultery (adultery) and other sins. " Do not be deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor wicked people, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God."(1st letter of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians, chapter 6, art. 9). " Carnal lust in chaste people is kept in bondage through willpower and relaxed only for the purpose of procreation.”(St. Gregory Palamas).

8. don't steal.

9. Do not bear false witness against your neighbor.

10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house; You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his field, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor any of his livestock, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.

Not only sinful deeds, but also evil desires and thoughts make the soul unclean before God and unworthy of Him.

The Lord Jesus Christ commanded to keep these commandments in order to receive eternal life (Gospel of Matthew ch. 19, v. 17), taught to understand and fulfill them more perfectly than they were understood before Him (Gospel of Matthew ch. 5).

He stated the essence of these commandments as follows:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. the second is similar to it: love your neighbor as yourself. (Gospel of Matthew, chapter 22, vv. 37-39).

THE HAPPINESS COMMANDMENTS

(excerpt from the Sermon on the Mount - Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5) with comments from the “Catechism” of St. Philaret (Drozdov)

Seeing the people, He went up the mountain; and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And He opened His mouth and taught them, saying:

1. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

To be poor in spirit means to understand that we have nothing of our own, but have only what God gives, and that we cannot do anything good without God’s help and grace. This is the virtue of humility.

2. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

The word weeping here refers to sorrow for sins, which God alleviates with gracious consolation.

3. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Meekness is a quiet disposition of spirit, combined with caution, so as not to irritate anyone or to be irritated by anything.

4. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.

These are those who, like food and drink, hunger and thirst for grace-filled justification through Jesus Christ.

5. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

Deeds of physical mercy: feeding the hungry, giving clothes to the needy, visiting someone in hospital or prison, welcoming a stranger into your home, participating in a burial. Deeds of spiritual mercy: turning a sinner to the path of salvation, giving useful advice to a neighbor, praying to God for him, comforting a sad person, forgiving offenses from the heart. Whoever does this will receive pardon from the eternal condemnation for sins at the Last Judgment of God.

6. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

The heart becomes pure when a person tries to reject sinful thoughts, desires and feelings and forces himself to unceasing prayer (for example: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner”). Just as a pure eye is able to see light, so a pure heart is able to contemplate God.

7. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.

Here Christ not only condemns mutual disagreement and hatred of people among themselves, but demands even more - namely, that we reconcile the disagreements of others. “They will be called sons of God,” since the work of the Only Begotten Son of God was to reconcile sinners with the justice of God.

8. Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

By righteousness here we mean life according to the commandments of God; This means that blessed are those who are persecuted for faith and piety, for their good deeds, for constancy and steadfastness in faith.

9. Blessed are you when they revile you and persecute you and slander you in every way unjustly because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for great is your reward in heaven.

Those who desire bliss must be ready to joyfully accept insults, persecution, disaster and death itself for the name of Christ and for the true Orthodox faith.

“Although Christ describes the rewards differently, he brings everyone into the kingdom. And when He says that those who mourn will be comforted, and the merciful will have mercy, and the pure in heart will see God, and the peacemakers will be called sons of God, by all this He means nothing other than the kingdom of heaven” (St. John Chrysostom).

Other commandments of God (from the Gospel of Matthew):

Anyone who is angry with his brother without cause is subject to judgment (Matthew 5:21).

Anyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart (Matthew 5:28).

Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who use you and persecute you (Matthew 5:44).

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you (Matthew 7:7) - commandment about prayer.

Enter through the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many go there; because strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to life, and few find it (Matthew 7:13-14).