Did the Catholic Church Change the Ten Commandments?

"The Catholic Church deleted the second commandment so Catholics could worship statues." Many Protestants have heard this, and some have seen it for themselves: they set a Catholic catechism list beside their own and notice that "no graven images" seems to be missing while the coveting commandment has been split in two.

Short answer: No. The Catholic Church has never removed a single word of the Ten Commandments. Every Catholic Bible prints Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 in full, including the command against idols. Scripture calls them "the ten words" but never numbers them, so Jews, Catholics, Lutherans, Orthodox and Reformed Christians have always divided the same text in slightly different ways. The Catholic numbering comes from St. Augustine in the early 400s, over a thousand years before the Reformation, and Martin Luther kept it.

Key verses on the Ten Commandments

• "he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten words" (Exodus 34:28)
• "You shall not have other gods beside me. You shall not make for yourself an idol or a likeness of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth; you shall not bow down before them or serve them." (Exodus 20:3-5)
• "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife. You shall not desire your neighbor's house or field..." (Deuteronomy 5:21)
• "Make two cherubim of beaten gold for the two ends of the cover" (Exodus 25:18)
• "He is the image of the invisible God" (Colossians 1:15)

Scripture quotations are from the New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE), © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The Ten Commandments Side by Side

Here is the same text of Exodus 20:2-17, numbered by the four major traditions. Nothing is added or removed in any column. Only the dividing lines move.

Look at the Jewish column. The people to whom God gave the commandments also keep "no other gods" and "no idols" together as one word. If joining them is "deleting a commandment," then Israel deleted it too. (Lutherans follow Exodus's order in the last two, putting the neighbor's house ninth and his wife tenth; Catholics follow Deuteronomy's order, wife first. The text is the same.)

What Catholics Actually Teach

The Catechism says openly that the numbering is a matter of tradition, not a change to God's word: "The division and numbering of the Commandments have varied in the course of history. The present catechism follows the division of the Commandments established by St. Augustine, which has become traditional in the Catholic Church. It is also that of the Lutheran confessions. The Greek Fathers worked out a slightly different division, which is found in the Orthodox Churches and Reformed communities" (CCC 2066).

The Catechism does not hide the prohibition of images. At the head of its teaching on the commandments it prints Exodus 20:2-17 in full, image prohibition included, alongside an abridged Deuteronomy 5:6-21 and a traditional catechetical formula. It teaches the ban on idols under the First Commandment (CCC 2129-2132). It also explains why God's own commands to make images do not contradict that ban: "already in the Old Testament, God ordained or permitted the making of images that pointed symbolically toward salvation by the incarnate Word: so it was with the bronze serpent, the ark of the covenant, and the cherubim" (CCC 2130). And it states plainly: "The Christian veneration of images is not contrary to the first commandment which proscribes idols" (CCC 2132).

What Catholics do not teach:

• That any commandment has been removed. All ten words are taught, and every word of Exodus 20 is in every Catholic Bible.
• That statues may be worshiped. Worship belongs to God alone. Idolatry is a grave sin against the First Commandment.
• That one numbering is a dogma. The Church follows St. Augustine's division as a teaching tradition (CCC 2066), not as a revealed truth.

The Biblical Case

1. Scripture gives "ten words" but never numbers them

The Bible calls the Decalogue "the ten words" (Exodus 34:28; see also Deuteronomy 4:13 and 10:4). No verse says "this is the second." Exodus 20 is one continuous passage of about fifteen verses, and every tradition has to decide where the ten divisions fall. Even the footnote to Exodus 20 in the NABRE, the Bible published by the U.S. bishops, notes that Catholic and Lutheran tradition joins the opening verses on other gods and idols into one commandment and divides verse 17 into two, while Anglican, Orthodox and Reformed churches do the reverse (Exodus 20, NABRE notes). A Protestant who says "the Catholics moved the lines" has to admit that his own lines were also drawn by human teachers, not by the text.

2. "No other gods" and "no idols" are one thought

Read verses 3-5 together. God forbids other gods, then forbids making idols, then says "you shall not bow down before them or serve them. For I, the LORD, your God, am a jealous God" (Exodus 20:5). The reason given is the same for both: God will not share His worship with anything else. That is why the Jewish tradition and St. Augustine both kept them as one commandment. The sin forbidden is false worship.

3. Deuteronomy itself separates the two kinds of coveting

When Moses repeats the commandments, the order changes and the wife stands alone: "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife. You shall not desire your neighbor's house or field, his male or female slave, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor" (Deuteronomy 5:21). The wife gets her own sentence and her own verb. Jesus draws the same line when He treats lust as adultery of the heart, distinct from greed for goods: "everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matthew 5:28). Splitting coveting is not a trick to reach ten. It follows Scripture's own wording.

4. God Himself commanded sacred images

If Exodus 20:4 forbade every image, God would contradict Himself five chapters later: "Make two cherubim of beaten gold for the two ends of the cover" (Exodus 25:18). He told Moses, "Make a seraph and mount it on a pole, and everyone who has been bitten will look at it and recover" (Numbers 21:8). Solomon carved cherubim, palm trees and flowers throughout the Temple (1 Kings 6:23-29). And when Israel later began burning incense to the bronze serpent, King Hezekiah destroyed it (2 Kings 18:4). Scripture itself draws the line Catholics draw: an image that points to God is holy; an image treated as a god is an idol.

5. In Christ, the invisible God became visible

Israel was forbidden to picture God because they "saw no form" at Horeb, that is, Sinai (Deuteronomy 4:15). Then God took a face. "He is the image of the invisible God" (Colossians 1:15), and "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). Jesus even used the bronze serpent as an image of Himself: "just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up" (John 3:14). Every crucifix, every icon and every statue of a saint in a Catholic church points to Christ: to His face, His Cross, and the holiness He worked in His friends.

Objections Answered

(a) "Catholic catechisms leave the image commandment off their list."

At its strongest: Short Catholic lists read "I am the LORD your God: you shall not have strange Gods before me," with no mention of images. A Protestant reading that list beside Exodus 20 can fairly ask where verse 4 went.

Answer: Every short catechism list abbreviates every commandment. The Catholic list shortens the Sabbath command (vv. 8-11) to "Remember to keep holy the LORD'S Day," and the coveting verse to two lines. That is a memory aid, not a new Bible. The full text sits in every Catholic Bible, and the Catechism prints all of Exodus 20:2-17 at the head of its commandments section. Martin Luther's Small Catechism (1529) also gives the First Commandment simply as "You shall have no other gods," without the image clause, and no one accuses Lutherans of deleting a commandment. The charge against Catholics fails for the same reason.

(b) "You split coveting into two just to get back to ten."

At its strongest: Exodus 20:17 reads as one sentence about coveting. Dividing it looks like a way to make up for the commandment you merged.

Answer: The division was made by St. Augustine in the early 400s for reasons that have nothing to do with statues: three commandments concern love of God and seven concern love of neighbor (CCC 2067, citing St. Augustine). And as shown above, Deuteronomy 5:21 itself gives the wife her own sentence and verb. Every tradition makes a judgment call somewhere: the Jewish count makes "I am the LORD your God" a commandment; the Reformed count treats the whole of verse 17 as one. The question is not who changed the Bible. No one did. The question is whose division best fits the text, and the Catholic division follows Deuteronomy's own wording.

(c) "Catholics bow before statues, which Exodus 20:5 forbids."

At its strongest: The commandment says "you shall not bow down before them." Catholics kneel before crucifixes and statues. That looks like a direct violation.

Answer: Exodus 20:5 forbids worshiping images as gods: "you shall not bow down before them or serve them." Scripture is full of bowing that is not worship: Jacob bowed to the ground seven times before his brother Esau (Genesis 33:3), and King Solomon "stood up to meet" his mother Bathsheba "and paid her homage" (1 Kings 2:19). Kneeling in prayer before a crucifix is kneeling before Christ, not before wood. The Church condemns worshiping any creature. (More: Do Catholics Worship Statues?)

(d) "Didn't the Catholic Church also change the Sabbath?"

Answer: No. The apostles themselves gathered on the first day of the week, the day of Christ's resurrection (Acts 20:7; Revelation 1:10). (More: Did the Catholic Church Change the Sabbath to Sunday?)

The Early Church Agrees

• St. Augustine (early fifth century) taught that the Decalogue's commandments fall into three concerning God and seven concerning neighbor, uniting "no other gods" with "no idols." The Catechism cites him for this division (CCC 2067), and St. Thomas Aquinas records that Augustine set it out in his questions on Exodus (Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 100, a. 4).
• Origen (third century) counted the image prohibition separately, as St. Thomas also notes (same article). The early Church knew more than one numbering and never treated the difference as heresy. That is exactly the Catechism's position today (CCC 2066).
• St. Basil the Great (On the Holy Spirit 18.45, c. AD 375, approximate), writing about Christ as the Image of the Father, laid down the principle that "the honour paid to the image passes on to the prototype" (On the Holy Spirit 18.45). The Second Council of Nicaea later applied his principle to sacred images, and the Catechism quotes him: "the honor rendered to an image passes to its prototype" (CCC 2132).
• The Second Council of Nicaea (787) defended the veneration of images of Christ, Mary, the angels and the saints, grounding it in the Incarnation, while reserving adoration to God alone (CCC 2131-2132). The Eastern Orthodox, who use the "separate" numbering, accept this council and venerate icons too.

Conclusion

The Catholic Church did not change the Ten Commandments. The text has never changed. Jews, Catholics, Lutherans, Orthodox and Reformed Christians all count the same ten words; they draw the dividing lines differently. The Catholic division is St. Augustine's, it predates the Reformation by a millennium, Luther kept it, and Deuteronomy 5:21 supports it. Meanwhile Scripture itself shows God commanding holy images and destroying idols, the very distinction the Catholic Church has always taught.

Come home. The Church that preserved the Ten Commandments, copied them, and taught them to every generation for two thousand years is the Catholic Church. Christ founded one Church on St. Peter and the apostles (Matthew 16:18), and "It is through Christ's Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help toward salvation, that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained" (CCC 816). If you love God's commandments, you already love what the Catholic Church has guarded. Christ is calling you into the fullness of the faith in His Catholic Church.

Your next step: Come to Mass this Sunday at your local Catholic church. You can find one near you at MassTimes.org. Everyone is welcome; if you're not yet Catholic, pray with us but don't receive Communion yet, and know that Confession is also for those who have entered the Church. When you're ready, call the parish office and ask about OCIA, the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults. They will walk you through every step. Read our guide: How Do I Become Catholic? Not ready yet? Get our free pocket guide below and keep learning.

Keep reading: Catholic vs. Protestant: The Real Differences · Do Catholics Worship Statues? · Are Catholics Christian?

FAQ

Did Catholics remove the commandment about graven images? No. It is in every Catholic Bible (Exodus 20:4-6; Deuteronomy 5:8-10) and is taught as part of the First Commandment (CCC 2129-2132).

Are the Catholic and Protestant Ten Commandments different? The text is identical. Catholics and Lutherans follow St. Augustine's numbering; Reformed and many other Protestants follow the numbering of the Greek Fathers (CCC 2066).

What is the second commandment in the Catholic Church? "You shall not invoke the name of the LORD, your God, in vain" (Exodus 20:7). In the Reformed numbering, that is the third.

Why do Catholics have two commandments about coveting? Because Deuteronomy 5:21 separates coveting a neighbor's wife from desiring his goods, and Jesus treats lust and greed as distinct sins (Matthew 5:28).

Do Lutherans number the commandments like Catholics? Yes. The Catechism notes that St. Augustine's division "is also that of the Lutheran confessions" (CCC 2066).

Sources

Scripture (NABRE, bible.usccb.org): Genesis 33:3; Exodus 20:2-17; Exodus 25:18; Exodus 34:28; Numbers 21:8; Deuteronomy 4:13, 15; Deuteronomy 5:6-21; Deuteronomy 10:4; 1 Kings 2:19; 1 Kings 6:23-29; 2 Kings 18:4; Matthew 5:28; Matthew 16:18; John 3:14; John 14:9; Acts 20:7; Colossians 1:15; Revelation 1:10.

Catechism of the Catholic Church (vatican.va): 816; Ten Commandments chart; 2066-2067; 2129-2132.

Church Fathers, Doctors and councils: St. Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit 18.45 (NPNF2 vol. 8); St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 100, a. 4 (on St. Augustine's and Origen's divisions); Second Council of Nicaea (787), as summarized in CCC 2131-2132.