Deuteronomy 5:6-21
The redeemed people of the Lord must live under His covenant words, loving Him without rivals and loving their neighbors through ordered, truthful, faithful, life-protecting obedience.
6 “I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
7 “You shall have no other gods before me.
8 “You shall not make a carved image for yourself—any likeness of what is in heaven above, or what is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
9 You shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them; for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate me;
10 and showing loving kindness to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
11 “You shall not misuse the name of Yahweh your God; for Yahweh will not hold him guiltless who misuses his name.
12 “Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as Yahweh your God commanded you.
13 You shall labor six days, and do all your work;
14 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to Yahweh your God, in which you shall not do any work— neither you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your livestock, nor your stranger who is within your gates; that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you.
15 You shall remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and Yahweh your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm. Therefore Yahweh your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.
16 “Honor your father and your mother, as Yahweh your God commanded you; that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land which Yahweh your God gives you.
17 “You shall not murder.
18 “You shall not commit adultery.
19 “You shall not steal.
20 “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
21 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. Neither shall you desire your neighbor’s house, his field, or his male servant, or his female servant, his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”
The redeemed people of the LORD must live under His covenant words, loving Him without rivals and loving their neighbors through ordered, truthful, faithful, life-protecting obedience.
Moses restates the LORD's covenant words so Israel will understand that life in the land must be ordered by the God who first redeemed them from slavery and therefore claims exclusive worship, holy time, family honor, truthful justice, sexual faithfulness, protected life, protected property, and governed desire.
Moses addresses Israel east of the Jordan in Moab after the wilderness generation has fallen and before the new generation enters Canaan. The covenant community of Israel, summoned as one people to hear the LORD's foundational covenant words before life in the land. The passage belongs to the exodus-Sinai stage, where the LORD's redeemed people are constituted as a covenant nation under His revealed law.
The Ten Commandments and the Living Voice at Horeb
Moses re-presents the Decalogue to the second generation as a living covenant address — not the inheritance of a dead past but the direct speech of the LORD to them — and closes with the community's terrified request that Moses mediate the divine voice, which the LORD endorses as the pattern of covenant instruction going forward.