"God said, "Thou shalt not kill" - does the theft of a little money make it quite all right for us to do so? If it's said that this commandment applies only to illegal killing, what's to prevent human beings from similarly agreeing among themselves to legalize certain types of rape, adultery, or perjury? Considering that God has forbidden us even to kill ourselves, can we really believe that purely human arrangements for the regulation of mutual slaughter are enough, without any divine authority, to exempt executioners from the sixth commandment? Isn't that like saying that this particular commandment has no more validity than human laws allow it? - in which case the principle can be extended indefinitely, until in all spheres of life human beings decide just how far God's commandments may conveniently be observed."

Woe to mankind, woe to our German nation if God's Holy Commandment 'Thou shalt not kill,' which God proclaimed on Mount Sinai amidst thunder and lightning, which God our Creator inscribed in the conscience of mankind from the very beginning, is not only broken, but if this transgression is actually tolerated and permitted to go unpunished.

God's law is 'right reason.' When perfectly understood it is called 'wisdom.' When applied by government in regulating human relations it is called 'justice.

If it is the will of God.

This inscription awakens the memory of people whose sons and daughters were destined for total extermination. This people draws its origin from Abraham, our Father in faith. The very people that received from God the commandment, thou shalt not kill, itself experienced in a special measure what is meant by killing. It is not permissible for anyone to pass by this inscription with indifference.

If the request is wrong, God says, "No." If the timing is wrong, God says, "Slow." If you are wrong, God says, "Grow." But if the request is right, the timing is right and you are right, God says, "Go!"

divine authority behind government

Everyman is somebody because he is a child of God. And so when we say Thou shalt not kill, we're really saying that human life is too sacred to be taken on the battlefields of the world. Man is more than a tiny vagary of whirling electrons or a wisp of smoke from a limitless smoldering. Man is a child of God, made in His image, and therefore must be respected as such. Until men see this everywhere, until nations see this everywhere, we will be fighting wars. One day somebody should remind us that, even though there may be political and ideological differences between us, the Vietnamese are our brothers, the Russians are our brothers, the Chinese are our brothers; and one day we've got to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. But in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile. In Christ there is neither male nor female. In Christ there is neither Communist nor Capitalist. In Christ, somehow, there is neither bound nor free. We are all one in Christ Jesus. And when we truly believe in the sacredness of human personality, we won't exploit people, we won't trample over people with the iron feet of oppression, we won't kill anybody.

As God has intervened in our past history, so He may in our present history. His purposes will not be thwarted. His kingdom will not be destroyed or left to another people, "but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever." (Daniel 2:44.) We must remember what our beloved President Spencer W. Kimball has reminded the Church so often: "Nothing is impossible to the Lord!" To come under the protective and preserving hand of God, it is vital that we keep before us the conditions for such protection. "Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people." (Proverbs 14:34.)

We have now completed both the spiritual and the temporal government, that is, the divine and the paternal authority and obedience. But here now we go forth from our house among our neighbors to learn how we should live with one another, every one himself toward his neighbor. Therefore God and government are not included in this commandment nor is the power to kill, which they have taken away. For God has delegated His authority to punish evil-doers to the government instead of parents, who aforetime (as we read in Moses) were required to bring their own children to judgment and sentence them to death. Therefore, what is here forbidden is forbidden to the individual in his relation to any one else, and not to the government.

Yes, it is absurd [to say that without God, murder is permissible], because even according to your sacred fables Moses murdered an Egyptian and then looked around to make sure no one saw him before trying to conceal the body, and the same goes for the myth of Cain and Abel, where Cain lied about killing his brother. Both of these characters obviously already knew that murder was wrong a long time before the story of the Ten Commandments, and this might be because Hammurabi had already established the code of law many centuries earlier than these myths found their way into the Bible, or it might be that, like most social animals, even superstitious savages understood that you shouldn't kill or maim other members of your own society (unless your religion commands it). One minute, God supposedly says "thou shalt not kill", and the next minute He orders His own people to kill every man and his brother, except of course for Moses's brother who really should have been the only one who was killed in that story. But somehow he was spared and promoted to priest instead; saved by nepotism. Then God told them all to kill all their neighbors, every man, woman and child, including the infants and the unborn. But the fact is that murder is still wrong, regardless of what God has to say about it, and there is still no justification when God allegedly commands His prophets to plunder communities and commit genocide.

Moreover, if we believe, as I do, that God's grace is extended to those who die in infancy or as small children, the death of these children was actually their salvation. We are so wedded to an earthly, naturalistic perspective that we forget that those who die are happy to quit this earth for heaven's incomparable joy. Therefore, God does these children no wrong in taking their lives.
So whom does God wrong in commanding the destruction of the Canaanites? Not the Canaanite adults, for they were corrupt and deserving of judgment. Not the children, for they inherit eternal life. So who is wronged? Ironically, I think the most difficult part of this whole debate is the apparent wrong done to the Israeli soldiers themselves. Can you imagine what it would be like to have to break into some house and kill a terrified woman and her children? The brutalising effect on these Israeli soldiers is disturbing.

The moral government of God is a movement in a line onwards towards some grand consummation, in which the principles, indeed, are ever the same, but the developments are always new,— in which, therefore, no experience of the past can indicate with certainty what new openings of truth, what new manifestations of goodness, what new phases of the moral heaven may appear.

Then, everlasting Love, restrain thy will;
'Tis god-like to have power, but not to kill.