Ex 20, 1-4 I, the LORD, am your God

Exodus 20 (chosen pages)

(Ex 20, 1-4) I, the LORD, am your God

[1] Then God delivered all these commandments: [2] "I, the LORD, am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. [3] You shall not have other gods besides me. [4] You shall not carve idols for yourselves in the shape of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth;

(CCC 2061) The Commandments take on their full meaning within the covenant. According to Scripture, man's moral life has all its meaning in and through the covenant. The first of the "ten words" recalls that God loved his people first: Since there was a passing from the paradise of freedom to the slavery of this world, in punishment for sin, the first phrase of the Decalogue, the first word of God's commandments, bears on freedom "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery" (Origen, Hom. in Ex. 8,1: PG 12, 350; cf. Ex 20:2; Deut 5:6).