Exodus 20:15

Not steal. Here the right to possess property is set forth, a right that is to be respected by others. For society to exist at all, this principle must be safeguarded, else there is no security and no protection. All would be anarchy. This commandment forbids any act by which, directly or indirectly, we dishonestly obtain the goods of another. Especially in these days when the keen edge of morality is becoming increasingly dull, it is well to remember that adulteration, the concealment of defects, misrepresentation of quality, and the employment of false weights or measures are all the acts of a thief as much as pocket picking or shoplifting.

Employees steal when they take a “commission” unknown to their superiors, or appropriate that which has not been expressly agreed upon, or neglect to do whatever work they contracted to do, or perform it in a slovenly manner, or damage the owner’s property through carelessness or diminish it by waste.

Employers steal when they withhold from their employees the benefits they promised, or allow their wages to fall into arrears, or force them to work overtime without proper remuneration, or deprive them of any other consideration they have a reasonable right to expect. They steal who conceal goods from a customs inspector or misrepresent them in any way, or who make out false or misleading tax returns, or who cheat tradesmen by incurring debts that they can never repay, or who in view of impending bankruptcy turn over their property to a friend, with the understanding that it is later to be restored, or who have recourse to any so-called tricks of trade.

Except for those possessed by the spirit of honesty, those who love justice, equity, and fair dealing, those who make it their law of life to do for others as they would that others should do to them, all men will, in one way or another, defraud their “neighbour.” We may steal from others in more subtle ways, robbing them of their faith in God through doubt and criticism, through the shattering effect of a bad example when otherwise trusted, by confusing and perplexing them by statements they are not prepared to understand, by pernicious, slanderous gossip that may deprive them of their good name and character. Whatever withholds from another that which is rightfully his, or appropriates to one’s own use that which is another’s — this is stealing. To accept credit for the labors or ideas of another, to use that which is his without his permission, or to take advantage of another in any way — this too is stealing.

“Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,

Is the immediate jewel of their souls:

Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing;

’Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands;

But he that filches from me my good name

Robs me of that which not enriches him,

And makes me poor indeed.”