Ten For The Ten Commandments (IP)

Back in Egypt they’d sometimes called him ‘butterfingers’ behind his back. Of course, he’d been a Pharoah’s son then and they’d been his slaves but it was true, he’d always been a bit clumsy; like when he was bitten by that stick that God gave them or when he parted the Red sea and a shark fell on his head but the worst thing ever; the thing that he would never live down was dropping the stone tablets that now lay shattered at his feet.

“You did what?”, asked Joshua, shaking his head in disbelief.

“I broke the commandments”, said Moses, gazing shamefacedly at the ground.

“What do you mean you broke them? You mean you disobeyed them?”, asked Joshua.

“No, I mean I broke them, literally”, said Moses, exasperratedly, “I was walking back down Mount Sinai; there was a rock, I lost my footing. I couldn’t help it, alright!? I was up there 40 days and 40 nights talking to God. That’s over a month. I was tired and those stone tablets; you don’t know how heavy those things are”.

“Well!! What are we going to do? What are we going to tell Aaron? Apparently
the others are getting so impatient that they’ve constructed a giant golden calf and started worshipping it”, said Joshua, “Did you break them all? I mean, are there any left?”.

“Just two tablets”, said Moses, “Ten commandments but I think I can remember some of the others. If you just give me a moment and a chisel, maybe I can write some of them down from memory”.

“Never mind that”, said Joshua, starting to lose his temper, “We’ll just have to go with what we’ve got. Don’t tell anyone you broke them and just let ME do all the talking. I just hope that bearing false witness isn’t against God's commandments”.

“Only if it's against your neighbour,apparently”, said Moses.

“The Ten Commandments?”, said Joshua, trying to look on the bright side,as they walked the rest of the way down the mountain together, “I like it. It has a ring to it”.

And the rest, as they say, is mythology.