At the foot of Mount Sinai, God showed his people the true function and beauty of His laws. The comments were designed to lead Israel to a life of practical holiness. In them people could see the nature of God and his plan for how they should live.  The commands and guidelines were intended to direct the community to meet the needs of each individual in a loving and responsible manner. By Jesus’ time however, most people looked at the law the wrong way. They saw it as a means to prosperity in both this world and the next. And they thought that to obey every law was the way to earn God’s protection from foreign invasion and natural disaster. Law-keeping became an end in itself, not the means to fulfil God’s ultimate law of love.