Ten Commandments

The Ten Commandments, or Decalogue, are a list of religious and moral imperatives that, according to Judeo-Christian tradition, were authored by God and given to Moses on the mountain referred to as "Mount Sinai" (Exodus 19:23) or "Horeb" (Deuteronomy 5:2) in the form of two stone tablets. They are recognized as a moral foundation in Judaism,

Christianity and Islam. In Biblical Hebrew, the commandments are called עשרת הדברים (transliterated Aseret ha-Dvarîm) and in Rabbinical Hebrew עשרת הדברות (transliterated Aseret ha-Dibrot), both translatable as "the ten terms." The English name "Decalogue" is derived from the Greek translation δεκάλογος dekalogos "ten terms", found in the Septuagint at Exodus 34:28 and Deuteronomy 10:4. The phrase "Ten Commandments" is generally used to refer to similar passages in Exodus 20:2–17 and Deuteronomy 5:6–21. Some scholars distinguish between this "Ethical Decalogue" and a different series of ten commandments in Exodus 34:11–27 that they call the "Ritual Decalogue". Although Exodus 34 contains ten imperative statements, the passages in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 contain fourteen or fifteen. However, the Bible assigns the count of ten to both lists.