Exodus 20 · a question people ask
How are the ten counted?
The text calls them ten (34:28; Deuteronomy 4:13, 10:4) but doesn't number them, and 20:2-17 has more than ten sentences. So Christians number them differently. The words themselves are the same whichever way they are counted: nothing is added or left out, only grouped. Some readers also count God's opening sentence, "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt" (20:2), as the first of the ten words.
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
Other gods and idols as two
Those who count this way read "You shall have no other gods before me" (20:3) and "You shall not make for yourselves an idol" (20:4) as two separate words: one about which God is worshiped, the other about how. They read the two "You shall not covet" sentences of 20:17 as one word, since both use the same verb and both are about what is "your neighbor’s" (20:17).
Exodus 20:3 · Exodus 20:4-6 · Exodus 20:17
One word on worship, two on coveting
Those who count this way read 20:3-6 as one word, taking "you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them" (20:5) with having no other gods. They count the two sentences of 20:17 as two words, since each begins "You shall not covet" (20:17). They note that when Moses repeats them, the neighbor's wife comes first and a second verb, "desire", is used for the house (Deuteronomy 5:21).
Exodus 20:3-6 · Exodus 20:17 · Deuteronomy 5:21
The verses
“He was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread, nor drank water. He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.”
“He declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even the ten commandments. He wrote them on two stone tablets.”
“He wrote on the tablets, according to the first writing, the ten commandments, which the LORD spoke to you on the mountain out of the middle of the fire in the day of the assembly; and the LORD gave them to me.”