What Does ‘You Shall Not Steal’ Mean?

It is one of the shortest commandments, two words in Hebrew, lo tignov:

You shall not steal.

Exodus 20:15

It sounds like the easiest of the ten to keep. Most people have never broken into a house or taken a wallet. But the Bible’s idea of stealing is much wider than burglary. It includes wages held back, scales tipped in the seller’s favor, borrowed things never returned and work paid for but never done. Taken that seriously, it may be one of the hardest commandments to keep in a modern economy.

The short answer: “You shall not steal” forbids taking what belongs to someone else, whether by force, by trickery or by quietly keeping back what you owe. It protects people’s property and the link between their work and what that work earns. Jewish tradition reads the commandment in the ten as being first about kidnapping, stealing a person. The New Testament adds a positive side: stop taking, start working and giving. It is one of the ten words in The Ten Commandments: What Each One Means.

Look at the company this commandment keeps. It sits between “You shall not commit adultery” and “You shall not give false testimony,” right after “You shall not murder,” all of them crimes that could carry the death penalty. The rabbis noticed that, and the Talmud concludes that the commandment in the ten is about stealing a human being: kidnapping (Sanhedrin 86a). Ordinary theft of property is covered elsewhere, in Leviticus 19:11.

The law treats kidnapping with full seriousness:

Anyone who kidnaps someone and sells him, or if he is found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.

Exodus 21:16

That reading gives the commandment a sharp edge. Israel had just come out of slavery in Egypt, where people were treated as property. The very first thing God said at Sinai was that he had brought them “out of the house of bondage” (Exodus 20:2). A people rescued from slavery must never trade in people themselves. The New Testament lists slave-trading among the sins the law condemns (1 Timothy 1:10).

Most Christian teaching reads the commandment more broadly, as covering every kind of theft. But the Jewish reading is a reminder of what is ultimately at stake: theft treats a person, or what a person has worked for, as something that can simply be taken.

The Bible’s law codes give a surprising amount of attention to theft that never looks like theft. Wages come first:

You shall not oppress your neighbor, nor rob him. The wages of a hired servant shall not remain with you all night until the morning.

Leviticus 19:13

A day laborer lived on that day’s pay, so holding it back overnight counted as robbery. James is even blunter with employers: “the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you have kept back by fraud, cry out” (James 5:4).

Business dishonesty comes next. “A false balance is an abomination to the LORD, but accurate weights are his delight” (Proverbs 11:1). The prophet Amos condemned merchants for “making the ephah small, and the shekel large,” selling less for more (Amos 8:5). Borrowing counts too: “The wicked borrow, and don’t pay back, but the righteous give generously” (Psalm 37:21).

The modern versions are easy to list: wage theft and unpaid overtime; padding hours or expense claims; overcharging customers who will not notice; pirated software, films and books; plagiarism; insurance fraud; taxes evaded (“give therefore to everyone what you owe: taxes to whom taxes are due,” Romans 13:7); borrowed things never returned. The common thread is taking what another person’s work produced, or what you owe them, without their consent.

The law did not punish theft with prison. It required the thief to pay back, and then some: four or five animals for a stolen sheep or ox (Exodus 22:1), or the full value plus a fifth for other property (Leviticus 6:1–5). Justice meant the victim was made whole.

The most famous example in the New Testament is Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector who had grown rich by overcharging. When Jesus came to his house, he stood up and said:

Behold, Lord, half of my goods I give to the poor. If I have wrongfully exacted anything of anyone, I restore four times as much.

Luke 19:8

Jesus answered, “Today, salvation has come to this house” (19:9). Zacchaeus did not just feel sorry. He paid back more than the law required, and gave beyond it.

Paul gives the commandment its positive form:

Let him who stole steal no more; but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing that is good, that he may have something to give to him who has need.

Ephesians 4:28

The opposite of stealing is not merely not stealing. It is working honestly and becoming generous. Luther’s Small Catechism makes the same move: we should not take our neighbor’s money or property, but “help him to improve and protect” what he has.

Stealing almost always starts with wanting, which is why this commandment and the last one on the list belong together (see What Does ‘You Shall Not Covet’ Mean?). A few ways to keep it in an ordinary week:

• Pay people promptly. Invoices, wages, the babysitter, the plumber. Leviticus counts a delay as robbery.
• Give a full day’s work. Time paid for is time owed, whether at the office or at home.
• Return what you borrow. Books, tools, money. Write it down if you have to.
• Pay for what you use. Software, music, films, other people’s writing and photos.
• Make it right. If you have taken something, give it back, with interest if you can. Restitution is the Bible’s pattern for repentance.

And leave some edges. Israel’s farmers were told not to harvest the corners of their fields or pick up what fell, but to leave it for those who had nothing:

You shall leave them for the poor and for the foreigner. I am the LORD your God.

Leviticus 19:10

In the Bible, what you own always comes with a share for others. Keeping this commandment well means holding your own things with an open hand.

What does “Thou shalt not steal” mean?

It forbids taking what belongs to someone else without their consent, whether openly, by fraud or by withholding what you owe. In the Bible that includes unpaid wages, dishonest scales and unreturned loans. Jewish tradition reads the commandment in the ten as being first about kidnapping.

Is stealing food a sin if you are hungry?

The Bible is unusually sympathetic: “Men don’t despise a thief, if he steals to satisfy himself when he is hungry,” though he must still pay it back (Proverbs 6:30–31). Catholic teaching holds that taking what you need in urgent necessity, such as food or shelter when there is no other way, is not theft (Catechism §2408). The deeper biblical answer is that the community should never leave anyone that hungry.

Is stealing a sin that can be forgiven?

Yes. Zacchaeus had cheated many people, and Jesus declared salvation had come to his house (Luke 19:9). Paul writes to people who used to steal and tells them to work and give instead (Ephesians 4:28). Forgiveness is free, and the Bible expects the thief to make it right with the person wronged, by giving back what was taken.

Is downloading pirated music or films stealing?

Most Christian teachers say yes. The commandment protects what another person’s work produces, and taking a film, song, book or program without paying for it takes that work without consent. That nothing physical disappears does not change who did the work.

Which commandment is “You shall not steal”?

It is the eighth commandment in Protestant, Orthodox and Jewish counts, and the seventh in Catholic and Lutheran ones. The words are the same in every Bible (Exodus 20:15; Deuteronomy 5:19); Catholic vs Protestant Ten Commandments explains why the numbers differ.