EXOD379 In most translations of the Bible, this verse (which begins, "Lo tissa …") is rendered as "you shall not take God's Name in vain," and people often are taught that this commitment means that it is blasphemous to utter God's name in a curse, or that they must write God as God. But the Hebrew word tissa means "carry," and what the verse seems to forbid is using (i.e., carrying) "God's Name" to justify selfish and/or evil behavior. For example, during the 19th-century, it was common for American Southerners to justify their practice of slavery as something approved of by the Bible and by God. But even though the Torah permitted slavery, it hedged it with many restrictions that were ignored and violated in the South, restrictions that made biblical slavery very different from that practiced in 19th-century America. ... Therefore, when Southern clergy tried to justify their practice of slavery with a claim that the Hebrew Bible (what Christians refer to as the Old Testament) and God would have approved of their behavior, they "carried" God's Name in vain, and associated God with heinous acts. From Judaism's perspective, it is a Chillul Hashem [profanation of God's Name-AJL] to associate God with evil; that may well be why God announces that He cannot forgive those who violate the Third Commandment ("the Lord will not clear one who carries His Name in vain"; this verse] The reason would seem to be obvious: when we commit evil acts such as murdering or stealing, we discredit ourselves, but when we do evil in God's Name, we discredit God and alienate people who might otherwise have become drawn to God and religion.