We read at Exodus 20: 15 that we shalt not steal. This is one of God’s Ten Commandments, so brought to our needful attention by the prophet Moses. No doubt, most everyone is aware of this particular Commandment, in addition to the fact that there are also quite a few people that believe that they have never violated such, because they have never stolen a good from someone’s house or shoplifted or anything else along those same lines. Regrettably, though, for those that feel highly about their virtue, just forgoing the stealing of material goods is really a very narrow reading of this important scripture.
For instance, stealing, can encompass a very wide range of bad actions, including such as stealing another person’s virtue, or their reputation, or their labor, or their opportunity, and so on and so forth. So then, with this more liberal reading of this Commandment, many more people, are guilty of having stolen something of worth from a fellow human being and therefore are in violation of this Commandment.
The important thing to remember is that anytime that we use deception or some other dastardly tool to take advantage of someone, in which that person, would never have willingly provided their consent to such, if they knew what was in actuality, really going on, is always a form of theft. There are, unfortunately, going to be plenty of other people that are cleverer than we are, more devious, and more diabolical, in which, those that deceive us in order to extract something of value, without providing something akin to a fair trade, are thieves.
So too, whenever we are to blame for something, but we make it a point, to deflect that blame by placing it upon someone else, thereby absolving ourselves of due punishment, we have stolen from that other person, by besmirching their identity to protect our own, which is also a form of theft. Additionally, those that don’t put forth an honest day’s labor, by virtue of their attention wandering to activities that are not germane to the tasks at hand, have stolen a fair day’s work from that which has hired them. Also, those that are students, that do everything within their power to cheat on the exams and assignments so placed in front of them, by having, for example, somebody else for a price or a favor, write their paper for them, or they, for instance, lean over so as to copy the answers to a test, from somebody else that has devoted themselves to the studying of such, are engaging in a form of thievery.
To steal, is to do anything that basically allows us to assume in the eyes of the public or those that we admire, that we are something, that we have not fairly earned by our own good efforts and labor, but have instead, “borrowed” or taken from another, in order to assume the guise of uprightness when we are anything but such. Those then, that are tempted to steal, and give in to such, because in their mind the end justifies the means, have apparently not fully understood that those with true integrity and therefore those that desire to do honor to their God, do not steal.