Aggada -- Translations into English; Bible. Old Testament -- Legends; Jewish legends; Midrash -- Translations into English
This is the eighth commandment: "Be not thief, nor the accomplice or
companion of thieves, that your children may not become thieves." As a
penalty for robbery and theft famine will come upon the world. [231]
God may forgive idolatry, but never theft, and He is always ready to
listen to complaints against forgers and robbers. [232]
The ninth commandment reads: "O My people of Israel, bear not false
witness against your companions, for in punishment for this the clouds
will scatter, so that there may be no rain, and famine will ensue owing
to drought." God is particularly severe with a false witness because
falsehood is the one quality that God did not create, but is something
that men themselves produces. [233]
The content of the tenth commandment is: "O My people Israel, covet not
the possessions of your neighbors, for owing to this sin will the
government take their possessions from the people, so that even the
wealthiest will become poor and will have to go into exile." [234] The
tenth commandment is directed against a sin that sometimes leads to a
trespassing of all the Ten Commandments. If a man covets his neighbor's
wife and commits adultery, he neglects the first commandment: "I am the
Eternal, thy God," for he commits his crime in the dark and thinks that
none sees him, not even the Lord, whose eyes float over all the world,
and see good as well as evil. He oversteps the second commandment:
"Thou shalt not have strange gods besides Me…, I am a jealous God," who
is wroth against faithlessness, whether toward Me, or toward men. He
breaks the third commandment: "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord
in vain," for he swears he has not committed adultery, but he did so.
He is the cause of profanation of the Sabbath, the consecration of
which God commands in the fourth commandment, because in his illegal
relation he generates descendants who will perform priestly duties in
the Temple on the Sabbath, which, being bastards, they have no right to
do. The fifth commandment will be broken by the children of the
adulterer, who will honor as a father a strange man, and will not even
know their true father. He breaks the sixth commandment: "Thou shalt
not kill," if he is surprised by the rightful husband, for every time a
man goes to a strange woman, he does so with the consciousness that
this may lead to his death or the death of his neighbor. The
trespassing of the seventh commandment: "Thou shalt not commit
adultery," is the direct outcome of a forbidden coveting. The eighth
commandment: "Thou shalt not steal," is broken by the adulterer, for he
steals another man's fountain of happiness. The ninth commandment"
"Thou shalt not bear false witness," is broken by the adulterous woman,
who pretends that the fruit of her criminal relations is the child of
her husband. In this way, the breaking of the tenth commandment has not
only led to all the other sins, but has also the evil effect that the
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