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Deuteronomy 5:8 · World English Bible

Deuteronomy 5:8 Meaning You Shall Not Make a Carved Image

You shall not make a carved image for yourself—any likeness of what is in heaven above, or what is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

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What does Deuteronomy 5:8 mean?

A graven image is any power you set up outside yourself and then bow to, whether an object above, a thing on the earth, or a shape in the waters. To carve one is to forget that your own imagination is the sole cause of everything you meet, and to hand that cause over to something you can point at.

From the Manifestation reading below.

Deuteronomy 5:8 through 1 lens

The same verse, read by one tradition.

MANIFESTATION

Manifestation

A graven image is any power you set up outside yourself and then bow to, whether an object above, a thing on the earth, or a shape in the waters. To carve one is to forget that your own imagination is the sole cause of everything you meet, and to hand that cause over to something you can point at. This is the whole of idolatry: worshipping anything outside your own consciousness as though it moved your life.

Heaven, earth and the waters name every region where a person is tempted to locate his god, and none of them holds it. You inescapably become and display whatever state you are conscious of being, so the state you assume is the only image with power. The command is not about statues. A person is never ruled by anything outside the awareness he is holding as his own.

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Manifestation lens

Live Deuteronomy 5:8 today

  1. When you catch yourself refreshing something for a verdict, the inbox, a balance, a reply, stop and name what you are actually asking it to decide about you. Then decide it yourself, quietly, and set the phone face down.
  2. In your next conversation, listen for the moment you hand someone the power to settle how your day goes. Stay warm with them and keep that settling in your own hands.
  3. Under pressure, when the traffic or the meeting or the number on the screen seems to be running your life, say plainly to yourself: this is not the cause. Then sit in the state you would be in if it had already gone well.

What have I been treating as the thing that decides my life?

The same truth in other traditions

Upanishads

The seeker looks everywhere for the holy and finds at last that the one he searched for is the awareness doing the searching. Nothing set up outside him ever held the power he gave it.

Tao Te Ching

The source that can be named is not the real one, and no carved name or form holds it. Whatever you fix in an image is already something less than what you were reaching for.

Stoicism · Epictetus

Nothing outside your own judgment has authority over you. The moment you treat an outer thing as the source of your peace, you have handed it a key it never earned.

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