In scripture we read:

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

Exodus 20:17

While the earlier commandments focus on visible actions—murder, theft, perjury—the Tenth Commandment turns inward. It targets the unseen root from which many external sins spring: the internal desire to possess what isn’t ours.

How Jesus Confirmed and Deepened the Commandment

Jesus didn’t just uphold the Law; He went straight to the matters of the human heart, revealing that true righteousness requires internal transformation, not just outward rule-following.

Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”

Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?”  Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’

“Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’

“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

“This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?

“Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Luke 12:13-34

Jesus warned that tied closely to covetousness is the illusion that our worth or security comes from what we accumulate.

Further on in the Bible we also read the following words of Jesus:

Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this.  Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.” 

After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)

He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”

Mark 7:14–23

By including greed and envy alongside murder and theft, Jesus emphasized that our unspoken internal longings shape our spiritual condition just as much as our public actions.

Modern Relevance: The Age of Algorithmic Envy

Though written thousands of years ago in an agrarian society, the Tenth Commandment has never been more relevant:

• Social Media & Constant Comparison: Today, our “neighbor’s house” is curated and displayed 24/7 on our feeds. We aren’t just looking over the fence anymore; we are bombarded with targeted glimpses of other people’s highlights, driving envy and status anxiety
• Consumer Culture: Modern advertising is built around creating artificial dissatisfaction—convincing us that we need what we don’t have to be complete
• Workplace & Career Transparency: Modern corporate culture and platforms like LinkedIn have turned professional lives into public resumes. Seeing peers, former classmates, or younger colleagues announce rapid promotions, prestigious job titles, equity exits, or remote “digital nomad” lifestyles creates intense career envy and a constant, anxiety-inducing metric of whether you are “falling behind” in your life’s trajectory

Coveting locks us into a scarcity mindset, making us resent others’ blessings. The antidote isn’t suppressing desire, but redirecting it toward contentment and gratitude for what we’ve been given.

More than a year ago I started to write 3 things down that I am thankful for every day before I go to bed. This is not hard for me to keep as a habit as it has become a highlight of my day. As it so happens, also the App I note the things down in has a limitation of 300 open “task”. This forces me to go through my list of gratitudes and cross 3 “off the list” each day before I add three new ones. Just going through the list and being reminded of the many blessings in my life feels wonderful. Further, I am amazed to see that each day a minimum of 3 more things to be thankful for pop up in my head, and usually the small things are the ones that really count, like being healthy, having a home, having friends that I meet some time etc.

Summary

The Tenth Commandment serves as a preventive spiritual mirror. While the other commandments stop the act, the Tenth stops the impulse. By calling us to guard our hearts against envy and greed, both the Old Testament law and Jesus’ teachings guide us toward authentic contentment, inner freedom, and genuine joy for the good things in others’ lives.

Further insights

Jesus himself gives much more depth to the topic than I ever could. Below is an extract from the visions of Maria Valtorta where He addresses this commandment in a speech rather at the beginning of his official journey.

“God gives everybody what is necessary. That is the truth. What is necessary to man? Pomp? A large number of servants? Countless fields? Banquets lasting from sunset to dawn? No. All that is necessary to man is a roof, a loaf, a garment. The indispensable to live.

Look around yourselves. Who are the happiest and the healthiest? Who enjoys a healthy tranquil old age? Fast living people? No. Those who live and work honestly and wish honest things. They are not poisoned by lust and thus they are strong. They are not intoxicated by orgies and are thus agile. They are not consumed by the poison of jealousy and are thus cheerful. Who instead craves to possess more and more, kills his own peace and has no joy, grows old precociously, consumed by envy and abuses.

I could link the commandment: “You shall not steal” to the other one: “You shall not covet what belongs to your neighbour.” In fact an immoderate longing urges one to steal. The step between the two is a very short one. Is every desire an unlawful one? I do not mean that. The father of a family who works in the fields or in a workshop and wishes to gain what is necessary to secure food for his family, most certainly does not commit a sin. On the contrary he fulfills his duty of a father. Who instead craves only to enjoy more and takes possession of what belongs to other people to have a better time, commits a sin.

Envy! What is to covet other people’s property but avarice and envy? My dear children, envy separates man from God and unites him to Satan. Do you not remember that Lucifer was the first one to covet what did not belong to him? He was the most beautiful of the archangels and enjoyed the vision of God. He should have been happy with that. He envied God, wanted to be God and became a demon. The first demon. Another instance: Adam and Eve had been given everything, they enjoyed the earthly paradise and God’s friendship, blessed with the gifts of grace which God had granted them. They should have been satisfied with that. They envied God’s knowledge of good and evil and were driven out of Eden and became disliked by God. The first sinners. A third instance: Cain envied Abel’s friendship with the Lord. And he became the first killer. Mary, the sister of Aaron and Moses, envied her brother and became the first leper in the history of Israel. I could lead you step by step through the whole history of the people of God, and you would see that immoderate longing made men sinners and brought the country calamity. Because the sins of the individuals accumulate and bring disasters to the country, exactly as grains of sand, piling up throughout centuries, cause landslides which overwhelm villages and their inhabitants.

I have often cited little children as an instance, because they are simple and trustful. Today I say to you: imitate birds in their freedom from desires. Look. It is now winter. There is little food in the orchards. Do they worry about hoarding it in summer? No, they do not. They trust in the Lord. They know that they will always be able to catch for their little crops a small worm, a little grain, a crumb, a small spider, a little fly floating on water. They know that there will always be a warm chimney-top or a flock of wool to shelter them in winter, and they know as well that when the time comes when they will need hay for their nests and more food for their little ones, there will be sweet-smelling hay in the fields and juicy food in the orchards and in the furrows, and the air and the soil will be rich in insects. And they slowly sing: “Thank You, Creator, for what You give us and will give us”, and they are ready to sing hosannas at the top of their voices when they will enjoy the company of their mates during the mating season and they see their offspring multiply.

Is there a happier creature than a bird? And what is its intelligence as compared to the intelligence of man? A chip of silica compared with a mountain. But it teaches you a lesson. I solemnly tell you that who lives without any impure desires possesses the joy of a bird. He trusts in God, feels that God is his Father.

He smiles at the rising day and at the falling night, because he knows that the sun is his friend and night his nourishment. He looks at men without malice and is not afraid of their vengeance, because he does not harm them in any way. He is not afraid for his health or his sleep, because he knows that an honest life prevents diseases and grants a peaceful rest. And finally he is not afraid of death, because he knows that, since he always acted well, God can but smile at him. Also a king dies. And a rich man dies. A sceptre will not avert death, neither can money buy immortality. As before the King of kings and the Lord of lords crowns and money are ridiculous things, a life lived according to the Law is the only thing of value!”

Maria Valtorta, The Poem of the ManGod, chapter 131. Jesus at the «Clear Water»: « You Shall Not Covet What Belongs to Your Neighbour. »

And in a small town called Gerasa, Jesus gives a speech on all commandments including this one: 

“This town is really beautiful. Make it beautiful also in justice and holiness. The hills, the stream, the green plain were given to you by God. Rome is now helping you to have homes and beautiful buildings. But it is up to you only to have your town called holy and just. A town is what its citizens make it. Because a town is a part of society closed within its walls, but it is the citizens that make the town. A town in itself does not commit sin. The stream, the bridge, the houses, the towers cannot sin. They are matter, not souls. But those who are within the town walls, in houses, shops, those who cross the bridge or bathe in the stream they can all sin. If a town is factious and ruthless, people say: “It is a very bad town.” But that is wrong. It is not the town, it is the citizens who are very bad. Those individuals by joining together become one complex thing, as well as one thing only, which is called “town.” Now listen. If in a town ten thousand inhabitants are good, and only one thousand are not good, can we say that that town is wicked? No, we cannot. Likewise: if in a town of ten thousand inhabitants there are many parties and each struggles to favour his own, can we say that that town is still united? No, we cannot. And do you think that that town will thrive? No, it will not.

You people of Gerasa are now all united striving to make your town great. And you will succeed because you all want the same thing and you vie with one another in achieving your purpose. But if tomorrow opposed parties should arise among you and one said: “No, it is better to expand eastwards” and another party said: “Not at all. We will build in the north where the plain is”, and a third one should say: “Neither here nor there. We all want to live close together in the centre, near the river”, what would happen? It would happen that the work you have started would stop, those who have lent capitals would withdraw them, those who intended to settle here would go to another town with more agreeable people, and what you have already done would go to rack and ruin, as it would be exposed to the inclemency of the weather, before being completed, as a result of the quarrels of citizens. Is that right or not? You say it is, and you are right. So the harmony of the citizens is required for the welfare of the town, and consequently of the citizens themselves, because the welfare of a society is the welfare of its members.

But there is not only the society of which you are thinking, the society of citizens, of fellow-countrymen, or the little dear family society. There is a vaster society, an infinite one: the society of spirits.

Each living man has a soul. The soul does not die with the body, but survives forever. The idea of God, the Creator, who gave each man his soul, was that all the souls of men should be gathered in one place only, in Heaven, forming the Kingdom of Heaven, whose monarch is God and whose blissful subjects were to be all men, after a holy life and a placid limbo of expectancy. Satan came to divide and upset, destroy and grieve God and spirits. And he set sin in the hearts of men and with sin he brought death to the body at the end of its existence, hoping to give death to spirits as well. But the death of spirits is their damnation, which is still existence, but devoid of what is true life and eternal joy, that is, devoid of the beatific vision of God and of His eternal possession in eternal light. And Mankind became divided in its desires, like a town divided by opposed parties. And it was thus brought to ruin. I said elsewhere to those who were accusing Me of expelling demons with the assistance of BeeIzebub: “Every kingdom divided in itself will be brought to ruin.” In fact if Satan

expelled himself, he and his gloomy kingdom would ruin.

I have come, for the love that God has for mankind created by Him, to remind people that one Kingdom only is holy: the Kingdom of Heaven. And I have come to preach it, so that the better people may go towards it. Oh! I would like everybody, even the worst ones, to come to it, becoming converted, freeing themselves from the demon who keeps them enslaved, either openly, through corporal and spiritual possession, or secretly through a mere spiritual one. That is why I move about curing sick people, expelling demons from possessed people, converting sinners, forgiving in the name of the Lord, preaching the Kingdom, working miracles to convince you of My power and prove that God is with Me. Because no one can work a miracle unless God is his friend. So if I expel demons with the power of God, and I cure sick people, I cleanse lepers, convert sinners, announce and preach the Kingdom and I call people to it in the name of God, and God’s compliance with Me is clear and indisputable, so that only disloyal enemies may assert the contrary, it is a sign that the Kingdom of God is among you and must be established because the hour of its foundation has come.

How is the Kingdom of God established in the world and in hearts? By going back to the Mosaic Law or by becoming acquainted with it if one is ignorant of it and, above all, by abiding by it absolutely, in every event and moment of our life. Which is that Law? Something so severe as to be impracticable? No. It is a set of ten holy easy precepts, which even a really morally good man feels he must respect, even if he lives in the most impervious forest of mysterious Africa. It says: “I am the Lord Your God, you shall have no gods except Me.

You shall not utter the name of God in vain.

You shall keep the Sabbath according to the commandment of God and to the needs of the human body.

Honour your father and mother so that you may have a long life and be blessed both on the earth and in Heaven.

You shall not kill.

You shall not steal.

You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.

You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife.

You shall not covet your neighbour’s goods.”

Which good natured soul, contemplating what is around him, even if he is a savage, will not say: “All this was not formed by itself. Therefore there must be One, more powerful than nature and than man himself, who made this”? And he worships the Powerful One Whose Most Holy Name he may or may not know, but he feels He must exist. And he has such reverence before Him, that when he utters the name which he has given Him or has been taught to utter to name Him, he trembles with respect and he feels that he prays when uttering it reverently. In fact it is a prayer to utter the Name of God with the intention of worshipping Him or making Him known to those who do not know Him.

Likewise, out of moral prudence alone every man feels that he must grant some rest to his limbs, so that they may resist as long as his life lasts. By deeper reason, a man who knows the God of Israel, the Creator and Lord of the Universe, feels that he must consecrate his bodily rest to the Lord, so that he may not be like a beast of burden which rests, when tired, on litter crushing fodder with its strong teeth.

Blood also calls for love for those from whom we originate, as we can see in that colt that is now running braying towards its mother which is coming from the market. It was playing in the herd, it saw its mother, it remembers it was fed by her and licked with loving care, defended and warmed by its mother, and see? It rubs her neck with its tender nostrils and jumps joyfully rubbing its young crupper against the sides that carried it. It is a duty and a pleasure to love one’s parents. And there is no animal which does not love the mother which gave birth to it. What? Will man be more vile than worms living in mud?

A morally good man does not kill. He has a strong dislike of violence. He feels that it is not lawful to take anybody’s life, and that God only, Who gave it, has the right to take it. He abhors homicide.

Likewise, he who is morally sound does not take advantage of other people’s property. He prefers to eat plain bread with a clear conscience near a silvery fountain, rather than have a rich roast which is the fruit of a theft. He prefers to sleep on the ground with his head on a stone and friendly stars above him, pouring peace and comfort on his honest conscience, rather than toss about in a stolen bed.

And if he is morally sound, he is not eager for more women, which are not his, and he will not cowardly disgrace the nuptial bed of his neighbour. And he will consider his friend’s wife as a sister and will not cast lustful glances at her, as no one does at a sister.

A man with a righteous soul, even if only naturally righteous, with no other knowledge of Good but what comes to him from his honest conscience, will never take the liberty of giving false witness, as he would consider that the same as homicide and theft, which it is. But his lips are as honest as his heart, and his glances are honest, so he does not desire his neighbour’s wife. He does not crave for anything, as he knows that that is the first incentive to sin. And he is not envious. Because he is good. A good man is never envious. He is happy in his lot.

Do you think that this law is so exacting as to be impracticable? Do not wrong yourselves! I am sure that you will not do that. And if you do not, you will establish the Kingdom of God within yourselves and in your town. And you will be happily joined one day to those whom you loved and who like you have gained the eternal Kingdom in the everlasting joy of Heaven.

But we have within us passions, which are like citizens closed within the circle of town walls. It is necessary for all the passions of men to want the same thing: that is, holiness, Otherwise some will tend to Heaven in vain, if others leave the doors unguarded and let the seducer enter or counteract the actions of part of the spiritual citizens through disputes or laziness, making the interior part of the town perish and abandoning it to nettles, poison, couchgrass, snakes, scorpions, mice and jackals, and owls, that is, to wicked passions and to Satan’s angels. You must be unceasingly vigilant, like sentries placed at the walls, to prevent the Evil one from entering where we want to build the Kingdom of God.

I solemnly tell you that as long as the strong man watches in arms the hall of his house, he is sure of everything which is in it. But if one stronger than he is comes, or if he leaves the door unguarded, then the stronger man will defeat him and disarm him, and when he is deprived of the weapons on which he relied, he loses heart and surrenders and the stronger man makes him a prisoner and takes his spoils. But if man lives in God, through loyalty to the Law and justice practised holily, God is with him, I am with him, and no harm can befall him. Union with God is the weapon which no strong man can overcome. Union with Me is certainty of victory and of abundance of eternal virtues through which he will be given an eternal seat in the Kingdom of God. But he who turns his back on Me or becomes My enemy, rejects thereby the weapons and certainty of My Word. He who rejects the Word, rejects God. He who rejects God invokes Satan. He who invokes Satan destroys what he had to conquer the Kingdom.

Therefore, he who is not with Me is against Me. And he who does not cultivate what I have sown, will reap what the Enemy has sown. He who does not harvest with Me, dissipates and will be poor and nude when he comes to the Supreme Judge, Who will send him to the master to whom he sold himself by preferring BeeIzebub to Christ.

Citizens of Gerasa: build the Kingdom of God within yourselves and in your town.»

Maria Valtorta, The Poem of the ManGod, chapter 287. Preaching at Gerasa.

Picture generated by the author using Google Gemini, 2026, prompt: “Suburban neighborhood scene illustrating envy over a neighbor’s property”