God's top ten

Have you ever seen a top ten list? The top ten best songs. Maybe the top ten best things to do on your holiday?!

This is the story of God's top ten list of how to live a very good life.

While Moses and the people of Israel were living in the desert, one day God asked Moses to climb to the top of a high mountain, where God would talk to him.

God wrote down ten laws that all the people of Israel were to keep, so that everyone would live together happily.

They were written by God on two stone tablets. Moses took them and explained them to the people of Israel.

Do you know any of them already? Let's have a look at the full list...

• honour and serve me, for I am the Lord your god
• do not make up any other gods and worship them instead of me
• treat my name with respect
• keep every Sunday as a day set apart for me
• treat your father and mother kindly
• do not kill any other people
• husbands and wives must keep their love only for one another
• do not steal other people's things
• do not tell lies
• do not be greedy for things that other people have

God wants us to keep the ten commandments because He loves us and wants us to live happy lives.

But it is very difficult to keep all these laws, and no-one has ever managed to do it. You probably have never killed anybody, but have you ever told a lie? Or really wanted something that someone else had that you didnt? Or maybe taken something that didn't belong to you?

Not keeping God's laws is called 'sin', and if we have not been able to keep all ten of these laws, it means we are not good enough to get in to Heaven, where God lives - like when Adam and Eve had to leave the special garden that God made for them, after they didnt do what God told them.

But the good news is that God sent his son, Jesus, to the earth to make a way for everyone to be made right with God again, even when they didnt keep these laws. Read more about Jesus here.