“In those days, God delivered all these commandments: “I, the Lord, am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. You shall not have other gods besides me. You shall not carve idols for yourselves in the shape of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the water beneath the earth; you shall not bow down before them. For I, the Lord, your God am a jealous God, inflicting punishment for their fathers’ wickedness on the children of those who hate me, down to the third and fourth generation; but bestowing mercy down to the thousandth generation on the children of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Exodus 20:1-6)

You’ve probably seen posters and Facebook images and bookmarks, etc. with the Ten Commandments. Usually though it’s the Cliffs Notes version, (Baby Boomer cultural reference alert), the bare bones. Those shalt have n other Gods besides me. Just the facts, Ma’am (another Boomer inside joke!), But reading the whole text from Exodus can be eye opening. That’s especially true with the First Commandment. It’s the whole story.

He tells us who he is…God. This is the Lord who brought the Israelites out of slavery; showing his power through signs and miracles. Yet there is still a temptation to follow the practices of the other cultures the Israelites had been exposed to, creating an image with human hands and then assigning some type of power to it. God says no more.

He tells us how he feels about us. He is jealous. He is jealous! He cares that much about us. How can that be, that the all-powerful, creator of the universe wants our love. Just think about that the next time you’re feeling insignificant. God doesn’t want you to turn to a carven image for help; he wants us to turn to him. There may not be a lot of idol worship these days. So to put it in today’s terms, he doesn’t want us to find our self-worth in our job, our wealth, our own ideologies; he wants us to find that meaning, that peace, that power, in our relationship with him.

He tells us that this agreement has no expiration date; its forever.0 Reading the words “inflicting punishment for their father’s wickedness on the children of those who hate me down to the third and fourth generations sounds harsh. Is God vindictive? No, of course not; that’s assigning human failings to our supernatural God. It is true though that each generation has responsibilities for the next. Moses came down from the mountain with these commandments an awfully long time ago. It’s been over two thousand years since Jesus walked the earth as a man. How many generations have come and gone since Moses? How many since Jesus’s birth, death and resurrection? Yet we are still telling the story of Moses’s and the Israelites’ covenant with God.

We’re now in the Christian season of Lent, a time of repentance and reflection on the incredible sacrifice that established a new covenant. We are the beneficiaries of those thousands of generations before us that passed on the faith and it is our responsibility to do so for the next generation, and the next, and the next right up to the moment that Jesus returns. We are the beneficiates of that promised mercy. And yes, throughout the centuries when the covenant has been ignored or betrayed, the following generations have suffered.

The commandments are guideposts to a well-lived life so remember to put first things first.

God bless.

Editor’s note: Ellen Sargent is a long-time resident of the Marquette area and member of the Catholic Church. She is married to Mining Journal Managing Editor Bud Sargent.