Thou shalt not covet

For example, when God was instructing Israel regarding the false religion of the Canaanites, he warned them not to covet the silver or gold on their idols, because this can lead to bringing detestable things into the home.

Utterly abhor and detest it, for it's set apart for destruction.The Book of Joshua contains a narrative in which Achan incurred the wrath of God by coveting prohibited gold and silver that he found in the destruction of Jericho.

Do not lust in your heart after her beauty or let her captivate you with her eyes, for the prostitute reduces you to a loaf of bread, and the adulteress preys upon your very life.This commandment is directed against the sin of envy.

Therefore, near the conclusion of his discourse on the Decalogue, Philo exhorts the individual to make use of this commandment to cut off desire, the fountain of all iniquity.

[17] Left unchecked, covetous desire is the source of personal, interpersonal, and international strife: "Is the love of money, or of women, or of glory, or of any one of the other efficient causes of pleasure, the origin of slight and ordinary evils?

Isn't it owing to this passion that relationships are broken asunder, and change the good will which originates in nature into an irreconcilable enmity?

"[18]Abraham ibn Ezra taught that a person can control his desires by training his heart to be content with what God has allotted to him.

[25] James goes on to describe how covetous desire leads to fighting and that lack of material possessions is caused by not asking God for them and by asking with wrong motives.

Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.The New Testament stresses thanksgiving and contentment as proper heart attitudes that contrast covetousness.

[29] The book of Hebrews encourages one to keep his life free from the love of money and "be content with what you have" and depend on the promises and help of God rather than trusting in wealth.

[30] The book of 1 Timothy contains a classic warning against the love of money and stresses that it's great gain to be content with food and clothing.

It's through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.The Catholic Church considers the prohibition on coveting in Deuteronomy 5:21 and Exodus 20:17 to include two commandments, which are numbered the ninth and tenth.

[32] A key point in the Catholic understanding of the ninth commandment is Jesus' statement in the Sermon on the Mount, "Every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

"Pure in heart" refers to those who have attuned their intellects and wills to the demands of God's holiness, chiefly in three areas: charity; chastity or sexual rectitude; love of truth and orthodoxy of faith.

[34]While baptism confers upon the Christian the grace of purification from sins, the baptized must continue to struggle against disordered desires and the lust of the flesh.

Modesty encourages patience and moderation in loving relationships, requiring that the conditions for the definitive giving and commitment of man and woman be fulfilled to one another.

It protests, for example, against the voyeuristic explorations of the human body in certain advertisements, or against the solicitations of certain media that go too far in the exhibition of intimate things.

Communications media ought to demonstrate respect and restraint in their presentations which should be free from widespread eroticism and the inclination to voyeurism and illusion.

Educators should be expected to give young people "instruction respectful of the truth, the qualities of the heart, and the moral and spiritual dignity of man.

The baptized person should resist envy by practicing good will and rejoicing and praising God for material blessings granted to neighbor and brother.

Romans 8:14, 27) Catholic teaching reminds that Jesus enjoins his disciples to prefer him to everything and everyone, and bids them "renounce all that [they have]" for his sake and that of the Gospel.

[49] "Blessed are the poor in spirit"[50] illustrates that those who voluntarily don't receive their physical needs are more inclined to seek fulfillment of their spiritual needs through Jesus Christ.

And yet we pretend to be godly, know how to adorn ourselves most finely and conceal our rascality, resort to and invent adroit devices and deceitful artifices (such as now are daily most ingeniously contrived) as though they were derived from the law codes; yea, we even dare impertinently to refer to it, and boast of it, and won't have it called rascality, but shrewdness and caution.

In this lawyers and jurists assist, who twist and stretch the law to suit it to their cause, stress words and use them for a subterfuge, irrespective of equity or their neighbor's necessity.

And, in short, whoever is the most expert and cunning in these affairs finds most help in law, as they themselves say: Vigilantibus iura subveniunt [that is, The laws favor the watchful].Luther further explains that the tenth commandment isn't intended for the rogues of the world, but for the pious, who wish to be praised and considered as honest and upright people, because they haven't broken any of the outward commandments.

[56] In whatever way such things happen, we must know that God doesn't wish that you deprive your neighbor of anything that belongs to him so that he suffer the loss and you gratify your avarice with it, even if you could keep it honorably before the world; for it's a secret and insidious imposition practised under the hat, as we say, that it may not be observed.

Calvin recognizes that all sorts of fancies rise up in the mind, and he exhorts the individual to exercise choice and discipline to shifting one's thoughts away from fleshly desires and passions.

[58] Matthew Henry sees the tenth commandment striking at the root of many sins by forbidding all desire that may yield injury to one's neighbor.

The appetites and desires of the corrupt nature are proscribed, and all are enjoined to see our face in the reflection of this law and to submit our hearts under the government of it.

St. Paul, when the grace of God caused the scales to fall from his eyes, perceived that this law, Thou shalt not covet, forbade all those irregular appetites and desires which are the first-born of the corrupt nature, the first risings of the sin that dwelleth in us, and the beginnings of all the sin that' committed by us: this is that lust which, he says, he hadn't known the evil of, if this commandment, when it came to his conscience in the power of it, hadn't shown it to him, Rom.