---
title: "How can we be free from greed and envy?"
url: "https://seekabove.com/answers/what-is-the-tenth-commandment"
description: "The Tenth Commandment — “you shall not covet your neighbour’s goods” — addresses the inner craving for wealth and possessions, especially greed and envy . It calls us to a “poverty of heart”: to want…"
published: "2026-06-06"
updated: "2026-06-06"
category: "Christian Life"
scripture: ["Exodus 20:17", "Luke 12:15", "1 Timothy 6:6-10", "Matthew 6:21", "Hebrews 13:5"]
catechism: "CCC 2534–2539, 2544, 2547, 2551, 2556"
---

# How can we be free from greed and envy?

## Short answer

The Tenth Commandment — "you shall not covet your neighbour's goods" — addresses the
inner craving for wealth and possessions, especially **greed** and **envy**. It calls us
to a "poverty of heart": to want what is good without grasping, to be content and grateful,
and to trust God rather than measuring our worth by what we own or by what others have.

## Full explanation

If the Ninth Commandment guards the heart against disordered *sexual* desire, the Tenth
guards it against disordered desire for *things*. Together they reveal that God's law goes
all the way down — not just to our actions, but to our wants. The Tenth targets two
closely related poisons.

The first is **greed** (or avarice) — the restless craving to have more and more, never
satisfied, treating possessions as the thing that makes life worth living. Jesus warns
bluntly: "be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in
the abundance of possessions." Greed is a kind of slavery dressed up as success: the more
it's fed, the hungrier it gets. Scripture even calls the love of money "a root of all
kinds of evil" — not money itself, but the *love* of it.

The second is **envy** — sadness or resentment at someone else's good fortune, the wish to
have what they have (or for them to lose it). Envy is uniquely miserable: it can't enjoy
its own blessings because it's too busy resenting others'. It corrodes friendships,
families, and whole societies, and it's the opposite of love, which rejoices in another's
good.

Against both, the Church offers the beautiful ideal of **poverty of heart** — sometimes
called detachment. This doesn't mean possessions are bad, or that we can't own things,
work hard, or enjoy good gifts. It means holding them with an open hand: grateful, generous,
and *free* — so that if we have much, we don't cling, and if we have little, we're not
consumed by craving. The first Beatitude blesses exactly this: "blessed are the poor in
spirit." It's the inner freedom of someone whose heart rests in God rather than in their
bank balance.

The cure for covetousness, then, isn't grim self-denial but a reordering of desire: to
*want God* most of all, and to receive everything else as gift. "Where your treasure is,
there your heart will be also" — so this commandment is finally a question about where your
treasure really lies.

## Why this matters

We live in a culture engineered to make us covet — advertising exists to convince us we're
incomplete without the next thing, and social media trains us to envy curated versions of
other people's lives. The Tenth Commandment names this restlessness as something to be
healed, not obeyed, and offers the genuine freedom of contentment and gratitude. People who
master their wanting are among the few who are actually free — and the most able to be
generous.

## Common misunderstanding

One misunderstanding is that this commandment, or Christianity generally, condemns wealth
and possessions as such. It doesn't — it condemns *disordered craving* (greed and envy) and
calls for freedom of heart, which the rich and poor alike can have or lack. The opposite
misunderstanding treats covetous desire as harmless "as long as I don't act on it"; but
like the Ninth Commandment, the Tenth says the heart's wanting itself matters.

## Scripture connections

- **Exodus 20:17** — "you shall not covet" your neighbour's house or goods.
- **Luke 12:15** — "be on your guard against all kinds of greed," for life is more than
  possessions.
- **1 Timothy 6:6-10** — "godliness with contentment is great gain"; the love of money is a
  root of evil.
- **Matthew 6:21** — "where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
- **Hebrews 13:5** — "keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content."

## Church teaching references

- CCC 2534, 2535, 2536, 2537, 2538, 2539, 2544, 2547, 2551, 2556
- The Catechism treats the Tenth Commandment as the call away from greed and envy toward
  poverty of heart and trust in God.

## Reflection question

What are you most tempted to covet — a possession, a lifestyle, someone else's success — and
what would it look like to trade that craving for gratitude for what you've already been
given?