NOTES for Exo 20:1-26
The great Decalogue (the Ten Commandments) is also the Old Testament description of the love that God offers people. Love for God is unique, the first commandment; it cannot be replaced by anything, the second; it cannot be used for one's own interests, the third. It seeks the fulfillment of God's will, not one's own, the fourth. Love for God illumines, sanctifies, our relationships with other people, because they are dear to God. And in this, God is revealed as the source of fatherhood, the fifth commandment; life, the sixth; faithfulness, the seventh; possession, the eighth; justice, the ninth; and the ordering of the world, the tenth. In the New Testament the same thing was formulated in the Hymn to Love in chapter 13 of the First Letter to the Corinthians.