166
Spiritual Gifts, Volume 3
themselves, lest the Lord break forth upon them.” Thus the Lord, in
[265]
awful grandeur, speaks his law from Sinai, that the people may believe.
He then accompanies the giving of his law with sublime exhibitions
of his authority, that they may know that he is the only true and living
God. Moses was not permitted to enter within the cloud of glory, but
only draw nigh and enter the thick darkness which surrounded it. And
he stood between the people and the Lord.
After the Lord had given them such evidences of his power, he
tells them who he is. “I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee
out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” The same God
who exalted his power among the Egyptians now speaks his law.
“Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness
of any thing that is in Heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or
that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself
to them, nor serve them; for I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God,
visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third
and fourth generation of them that hate me, and shewing mercy unto
thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
“Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the
Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
[266]
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou
labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the
Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor
thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle,
nor thy stranger that is within thy gates, for in six days the Lord made
heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh
day; wherefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.
“Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon
the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
“Thou shalt not kill.
“Thou shalt not commit adultery.
“Thou shalt not steal.
“Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet
thy neighbor’s wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his
ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.”