The Ninth Commandment.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house.
What does this mean?--Answer.
We should fear and love God that we may not craftily seek to get our neighbor's inheritance or house, and obtain it by a show of [justice and] right, etc., but help and be of service to him in keeping it.
We should fear and love God that we may not craftily seek to get our neighbor's inheritance or house, and obtain it by a show of [justice and] right, etc., but help and be of service to him in keeping it.
The ninth commandment goes hand in hand with the seventh: "You shall not steal." Leave your neighbor's property alone. Don't even think about it; unless you are thinking about ways to help him keep his property. Desiring what belongs to someone else can lead to all kinds of evil against him or her as our desires becomes obsessive thoughts and our obsessive thoughts turn to evils action to get what does not belong to us.
Hard work, perseverance, and education or other training will aid you in pursuit of what you might desire. Craftily attempting to obtain something from another who has worked for what they have will only bring trouble. What they have earned is theirs. What you have worked for and earned is yours.
The second table of the law is summed up like this: "Love your neighbor as yourself." (Matt 22:39; Mark 12:31) May God grant that our neighbors would love us enough to not craftily seek to obtain our inheritance or home even as we would not pursue obtaining theirs; but help them to keep it and be of service to them.
God's Peace - Pr. J
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