What were the ten commandments exactly?

Answer 1

There's some disagreement on this point... not on what they are in total, but on the numbering of the individual ones. The list below contains more than 10 items; some of them get combined so that the overall number of commandments is ten, but exactly which ones get combined and which ones are independent varies.

Also, I'm paraphrasing somewhat rather than going by any particular translation... look up Exodus 20:2-17 or Deuteronomy 5:6-21 if you want the exact (translated) text.

1. I am the Lord your God
2. You shall have no other gods before me
3. You shall not make idols for yourselves
4. Do not take the name of the Lord in vain
5. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy
6. Honor your father and mother
7. You shall not murder
8. You shall not commit adultery
9. You shall not steal
10. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor
11. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife
12. You shall not covet your neighbor's house
13. You shall not covet anything else belonging to your neighbor

1, 2, and 3 and 11, 12, and 13 are the ones that usually get combined in various ways to bring the overall number down to 10 (at least one tradition regards 1 as a sort of preamble: basically "I'm God, so listen up, here are the rules").

Answer:

Then again there is the set found at Exodus 34

1. Thou shalt worship no other god (For the Lord is a jealous god).

2. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.

3. The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep in the month when the ear is on the corn.

4. All the first-born are mine.

5. Six days shalt thou work, but on the seventh thou shalt rest.

6. Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, even of the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.

7. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread.

8. The fat of my feast shall not remain all night until the morning.

9. The first of the first fruits of thy ground thou shalt bring unto the house of the Lord thy God.

10. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk.