What are the powers and punishments of the Ten Commandments in the 7 deadly sins?

The Ten Commandments are not within the seven deadly sins, and the power of any violation of Gods commands are the judgments for committing such a sin. The blessings are those that come from obeying the same commands of God.

According to Catholic theology, the seven deadly sins are seven vices or negative character qualities that, left unchecked, will result in a host of other sins and eventually kill a person’s soul. The seven “deadly” sins are pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed, and sloth. The list was first delineated by Pope Gregory the Great in the sixth century. Thomas Aquinas later expounded on the idea. In the fourteenth century, Dante wrote his poem Inferno in which he pictured Purgatory as having seven terraces corresponding to the seven deadly sins.

The seven deadly sins are also called the seven capital sins or the seven cardinal sins — cardinal in this context meaning, “of basic importance” or “extremely grave.” The seven deadly sins are considered to be the most basic sins that plague humanity and the sins that are most likely to beset us. Each of the seven deadly sins leads to other sins; for example, anger can lead to evil speaking, violence, or murder.

Here is a brief description of each of the seven deadly sins:

Pride — An inflated, unrealistic sense of your self-worth.

Envy — The feeling that you deserve the possessions, success, virtues, or talents of another person.

Gluttony — An excessive desire for the pleasure of eating and drinking.

Lust — A selfish focus on sex or a desire to have sexual pleasure with someone other than your spouse.

Anger — An excessive, improper desire to exact revenge.

Greed — A strong desire for possessions, especially for possessions belonging to another.

Sloth — Lack of effort in the face of a necessary task, causing it to go undone (or done badly).

A common misconception about the seven deadly sins is that they are sins that God will not forgive. The Roman Catholic Church does not teach the sins to be unforgivable; in Catholic doctrine, the seven deadly sins can lead to mortal sins, which will send a person to hell immediately upon death, unless such sins are repented of before death. Catholicism also teaches that the seven deadly sins can be overcome with the seven virtues (humility, gratitude, charity, temperance, chastity, patience, and diligence).

The idea of seven deadly sins is questionably biblical? Proverbs 6:16–19 lists the seven things that God hates: 1) haughty eyes, 2) a lying tongue, 3) hands that shed innocent blood, 4) a heart that plots evil, 5) feet that are quick to rush to do wrong, 6) a false witness, and 7) a man who stirs up dissension among brothers. This list is not what most people understand as the “seven deadly sins.”

Pride, envy, etc., are sins that the Bible condemns; however, they are never called “the seven deadly sins” in the Bible. The traditional list of seven deadly sins can function as a way to categorize the many different sins that exist. Nearly every sin could be placed in one of those seven categories.

In the final analysis, no sin is any more “deadly” than any other sin. All sin results in death (Romans 6:23). Even one sin condemns a person as a lawbreaker (James 2:10).

The Ten Commandments (also known as the Decalogue) are ten laws in the Bible that God gave to the nation of Israel shortly after the exodus from Egypt. The Ten Commandments are essentially a summary of the 613 commandments contained in the Old Testament Law. The first four commandments deal with our relationship with God. The last six commandments deal with our relationships with one another. The Ten Commandments are recorded in the Bible in Exodus 20:1–17 and Deuteronomy 5:6–21 and are as follows:

1) “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” This command is against worshiping any god other than the one true God. All other gods are false gods.

2) “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” This command is against making an idol, a visible representation of God. There is no image we can create that can accurately portray God. To make an idol to represent God is to worship a false god.

3) “Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;” This is a command against taking the name of the Lord in vain. We are to show reverence to God by only mentioning Him in respectful and honoring ways.

4) “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy”. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” This is a command to set aside the Sabbath (Saturday, the last day of the week) as a day of rest dedicated to the Lord.

5) “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee..” This is a command to always treat one’s parents with honor and respect.

6) “Thou shalt not kill.” This is a command against the premeditated murder of another human being.

7) “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” This is a command against having sexual relations with anyone other than one’s spouse.

8) “Thou shalt not steal” This is a command against taking anything that is not one’s own, without the permission of the person to whom it belongs.

9) “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.” This is a command prohibiting testifying against another person falsely. It is essentially a command against lying.

10) “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.” This is a command against desiring anything that is not one’s own. Coveting can lead to breaking one of the commandments listed above: murder, adultery, and theft. If it is wrong to do something, it is wrong to desire to do that same something.

Many people mistakenly look at the Ten Commandments as a set of rules that, if followed, will guarantee entrance into heaven after death. In contrast, the purpose of the Ten Commandments is to force people to realize that they cannot perfectly obey the Law (Romans 7:7–11), and are therefore in need of God’s mercy and grace. Despite the claims of the rich young ruler in Matthew 19:16, no one can perfectly obey the Ten Commandments (Ecclesiastes 7:20). The Ten Commandments demonstrate that we have all sinned (Romans 3:23) and are therefore in need of God’s mercy and grace, available only through faith in Jesus the Christ.