IDEA: All of the commandments are conditioned by the first and last commandments. TEXT: "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's" (Exodus 20:17).

"You shall not covet your neighbor's wife; and you shall not desire your neighbor's house, his field, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's" (Deuteronomy 5:21).

PURPOSE: To help listeners see the danger of covetousness and the solution to covetousness.

Have you noticed in Bible study how the first and last topics sometimes give you a sense of how the whole book is put together?

For example, the book of Genesis begins with God creating human life and ends in a coffin in Egypt. Everything in between tells you about the God who brought the world into being and how the whole thing ends up with a dead body in Egypt.

In the book of Ephesians, Paul starts out in the heavenlies and ends up talking about a man in jail on earth.

The parable of the prodigal son begins with the Pharisees muttering about Jesus welcoming sinners, and it ends with a man who will not welcome his brother or eat with him.

I. If you look at the Ten Commandments, the first and the last control the eight commandments in between.

II. If we have no God but Jehovah, we will covet nothing save what God supplies.

To love God is to love Him supremely, and that love keeps us from betraying Him.

III. If we covet anything that we cannot lawfully obtain, our hunger for things stands in opposition to our hunger for God.