(Third Part: Of Thankfulness—Questions 86-129)
92. What is the Law of God?
- God spake all these words, saying:
First Commandment: I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.
Second Commandment: Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything 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 showing mercy unto thousands of them that love Me, and keep My commandments.
Third Commandment: 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.
Fourth Commandment: 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 manservant, nor thy maidservant, 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.
Fifth Commandment: Honor thy father and thy mother; that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
Sixth Commandment: Thou shalt not kill.
Seventh Commandment: Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Eighth Commandment: Thou shalt not steal.
Ninth Commandment: Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
Tenth Commandment: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house; thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.
93. How are these commandments divided?
- Into two tables: the first of which teaches us, in four commandments, what duties we owe to God; the second, in six, what duties we owe to our neighbor.
94. What does God require in the first commandment?
- That, on peril of my soul’s salvation, I avoid and flee all idolatry, sorcery, enchantments, invocation of saints or of other creatures; and that I rightly acknowledge the only true God, trust in Him alone, with all humility and patience expect all good from Him only, and love, fear and honor Him with my whole heart; so as rather to renounce all creatures than do the least thing against His will.
95. What is idolatry?
- It is instead of the one true God who has revealed Himself in His Word, or along with the same, to conceive or have something else on which to place our trust.
