“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
– Exodus 20:17
 Coveting is very, very common especially in our ambitious, competitive, American world. We covet all the time. Dennis Prager pointed out that in the Old Testament, all of the stories are fixated on what you do. The Old Testament scholars don’t spend a lot of time talking about how you think or how you feel, they’re just like do what’s right and don’t do what’s wrong. In fact, all of the Ten Commandments are about your actions, right? Except one – the tenth commandment, the last commandment. It’s one of the only times in the Old Testament God calls what you think a sin. He says coveting and thinking this way is a sin. Even though there’s no action associated with coveting other than what happens in your mind, it’s still a sin to think those thoughts. Isn’t that strange? Thou shalt not covet, and yet we do it all the time. |
Prayer
God, help me to keep my thoughts pure. Help me to focus on my thoughts as well as my actions.
Reflection
Do you covet?
