Forty-Two Negitive Confessions

The Ten Commandments are not excepted as either god-given, or as a code by which men should govern their lives. And for good reason. Under Mosaic Law, violation of any of the Ten Commandments was punishable by death. When the Ten Commandments are compared with the principles by which the ancient Egyptians governed their lives, the laws of the Judaeo-Christian-Moslem world are barbaric and meaningless. The principle that governs the "True Egyptian" is Maat--a religious principle which is more than justice, it is Divine-Justice, personified in the Goddess, Maat, who exemplifies the eternal laws of the universe as, Truth and Justice.
In the weighing of the wrongs man does in this life against the intent of his heart, Maat makes a distinction between sins and transgressions. A sin is a violation of the laws of the God. That is, laws pertaining to the ordinances and requirements which the God have given for worship. This also extends to the commitment one makes toGod and the respect one holds for their gifts. Transgressions on the other hand, are offenses against our fellow mortals, their possessions, or the earth--or that portion of the earth on which we live. Thus, one sins against God, but one transgresses against mortals.
All transgressions may be forgiven by the priestesses, but not all sins. As one progresses in knowledge of God, one is taught the principles of Maat. The further one progresses, the more he or she is expected to incorporate those principles into his or her life. That knowledge, or understanding, is of course gained while performing the rites of passage.
Egyptologists have termed these principles "Negative Confessions" because they usually begin with the negative, "I have not." In the principles of Truth and Justices, they are in fact affirmations of what one has not done in his life to live by Maat.
MAAT -Truth and Justice

Transgressions Against Mankind
1. I have not committed murder, neither have I bid any man to slay on my behalf;
2. I have not committed rape, neither have I forced any woman to commit fornication;

3. I have not avenged myself, nor have I burned with rage;

4. I have not caused terror, nor have I worked affliction;

5. I have caused none to feel pain, nor have I worked grief;

6. I have done neither harm nor ill, nor I have caused misery;

7. I have done no hurt to man, nor have I wrought harm to beasts;

8. I have made none to weep;

9. I have had no knowledge of evil, neither have I acted wickedly, nor have I wronged the people;

10. I have not stolen, neither have I taken that which does not belong to me, nor that which belongs to another, nor have I taken from the orchards, nor snatched the milk from the mouth of the babe;

11. I have not defrauded, neither I have added to the weight of the balance, nor have I made light the weight in the scales;

12. I have not laid waste the plowed land, nor trampled down the fields;

13. I have not driven the cattle from their pastures, nor have I deprived any of that which was rightfully theirs;

14. I have accused no man falsely, nor have I supported any false accusation;

15. I have spoken no lies, neither have I spoken falsely to the hurt of another;

16. I have never uttered fiery words, nor have I stirred up strife;

17. I have not acted guilefully, neither have I dealt deceitfully, nor spoken to deceive to the hurt another;

18. I have not spoken scornfully, nor have I set my lips in motion against any man;

19. I have not been an eavesdropper;

20. I have not stopped my ears against the words of Right and Truth;

21. I have not judged hastily, nor have I judged harshly;

22. I have committed no crime in the place of Right and Truth;

23. I have caused no wrong to be done to the servant by his master;

24. I have not been angry without cause;

25. I have not turned back water at its springtide, nor stemmed the flow of running water;

26. I have not broken the channel of a running water;

27. I have never fouled the water, nor have I polluted the land;

Sins (against God)
28. I have not cursed nor despised God, nor have I done that which God does abominate;
29. I have not vexed or angered God;

30. I have not robbed God, nor have I filched that which has been offered in the temples;

31. I have not added unto nor have I minished the offerings which are due;

32. I have not purloined the cakes of the gods;

33. I have not carried away the offerings made unto the blessed dead;

34. I have not disregarded the season for the offerings which are appointed;

35. I have not turned away the cattle set apart for sacrifice;

36. I have not thwarted the processions of the god;

37. I have not slaughtered with evil intent the cattle of the god;

Personal Transgressions
38. I have not acted guilefully nor have I acted in insolence;

39. I have not been overly proud, nor have I behaved myself with arrogance;

40. I have never magnified my condition beyond what was fitting;

41. Each day have I labored more than was required of me;

42. My name has not come forth to the boat of the Prince;

It should be obvious that the Forty-two Affirmations of Right and Truth are far more inclusive than the Ten Commandments. Even when the rest of the Jewish laws are considered, they pale in the light of the Egyptian Law. Punishment for the Personal Transgressions was reserved for the judgment of the God--not in this life, but in the judgment of Maat. The punishment for sins in ancient Egypt was banishment from the community--which in Egypt usually meant banishment from the community where the God was worshiped. That could mean banishment from the nation, depending on the God against whom the sin was committed. As for the Transgressions against mortals, the punishment was exacted to fit the crime. In ancient Egypt, the death penalty was seldom used, and then only under unusual circumstances. Periods as long as 150 years went by without a single execution. Yet Egypt, for the most part, was without crime. Crime rose only when immigrants brought their barbaric customs and diseases into Egypt, which, because Egypt was the center of the ancient world with open boarders, this occurred more often than the Egyptians wished.
The Egyptian solution to a rising crime rate was not to pass harsher punishments, or to make it a crime to carry a weapon. No! The solution was to eliminate the root cause of crime. In the New Kingdon, during the rule of Ahmose I , crime was so rampant that even the graves of the Pharaohs were being robbed. To combat this problem, the Pharaoh expelled 260,000 Semites from the country. This expulsion would become the Exodus of the Jews. The expulsion virtually eliminated crime in the country--while the Hebrews who were expelled, would claim that they had borrowed the gold and silver they had robbed from the graves. It is only after this so-called-exodus, that archaeologists find any evidence of massive Hebrew occuppation the land of the Palestinians who had migrated to that portion of the Mediterranean coast two generations earlier. This exodus occurred a about the same time Jewish tradition has Saul establishing the Jewish kingdom, claimed in the Bible. It was, again, the Jewish Lord god who, according to the Bible, ordered the genocide of the Philistines, which is the Greek name for the people who called themsleves Palestinians. And it is the same genocide order of the Jewish god that is out today in the name of fighting terror.