Lehi’s Prophecies
I, Nephi, will now write on these plates about my actions, my leadership, and my ministry. To continue my story, I must tell you some things about my father and my brothers. After my father finished telling us about his dream and encouraging us to work hard, he spoke to us about the Jews. He said that after Jerusalem was destroyed and many people were taken as prisoners to Babylon, the Lord would bring them back at the right time. After being freed, they would own their land again.
The Coming Messiah
Six hundred years from when my father left Jerusalem, the Lord God would send a prophet among the Jews. This would be a Messiah, or in other words, a Savior of the world. He also spoke about the prophets. Many prophets had told about this Messiah, this Redeemer of the world. So all people were lost and fallen. They would always be lost unless they trusted in this Redeemer.
John the Baptist
He also spoke about a prophet who would come before the Messiah to prepare the way of the Lord. This prophet would go out and call in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord and make his paths straight. Someone stands among you whom you don’t know. He is mightier than I am. I am not good enough to untie his shoes.' My father spoke a lot about this. My father said he would baptize in Bethabara, beyond the Jordan River. He also said he would baptize with water, and that he would baptize the Messiah with water. After he had baptized the Messiah with water, he would see and tell others that he had baptized the Lamb of God, who would take away the sins of the world.
After my father had spoken these words, he spoke to my brothers about the Gospel that would be preached to the Jews. He also spoke about the Jews losing their belief. After they killed the Messiah who would come, and after he was killed, he would rise from the dead. He would show himself through the Holy Ghost to the Gentiles.
Scattering and Gathering
My father spoke much about the Gentiles and about the House of Israel. He said they would be like an olive tree whose branches would be broken off and scattered all over the earth. So he said we must be led together to the promised land. This would fulfill the Lord’s word that we would be scattered all over the earth. After the House of Israel is scattered, they will be gathered together again. After the Gentiles receive the full Gospel, the natural branches of the olive tree - the remaining people of the House of Israel - will be grafted back in. They will come to know the true Messiah, their Lord and Redeemer.
This is how my father prophesied and spoke to my brothers. He said many more things that I don’t write in this book. I have written what I needed to in my other book. All these things I have spoken about happened while my father lived in a tent in the valley of Lemuel.
Nephi Seeks Understanding
After I heard all my father’s words about what he saw in a vision and what he spoke by the power of the Holy Ghost, I wanted to know more. He received this power by having faith in the Son of God. The Son of God was the Messiah who would come. I wanted to see, hear, and know these things by the power of the Holy Ghost. This is God’s gift to all who carefully seek him, both in old times and when he shows himself to people. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The way has been prepared since the world began, if people repent and come to him. Those who carefully seek will find. God’s mysteries will be shown to them by the power of the Holy Ghost. This happens now just like it did in old times, and it will happen in times to come. The Lord’s path is one eternal circle.
A Warning About Judgment
So remember, O man, you will be judged for everything you do. So if you have chosen to do wrong during your test on earth, you will be found unclean before God’s judgment seat. Nothing unclean can live with God. So you must be sent away forever. The Holy Ghost gives me authority to speak these things and not deny them.
Influences
- 10:4 — John 4:42 (KJV)And said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.
- 10:8 — John 1:23 (KJV)He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias.
- 10:8 — John 1:26-27 (KJV)John answered them, saying, I baptize with water: but there standeth one among you, whom ye know not; He it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose.
- 10:8 — Luke 3:16 (KJV)John answered, saying unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire:
- 10:8 — Luke 3:16 (KJV)John answered, saying unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire:
- 10:9 — John 1:26 (KJV)John answered them, saying, I baptize with water: but there standeth one among you, whom ye know not;
- 10:10 — John 1:29 (KJV)The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
- 10:11 — John 20:9 (KJV)For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead.
- 10:13 — 1 Thessalonians 4:15 (KJV)For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.
- 10:14 — Romans 11:24 (KJV)For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?
- 10:17 — Romans 15:13 (KJV)Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.
- 10:17 — Galatians 2:20 (KJV)I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
- 10:17 — Hebrews 11:6 (KJV)But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
- 10:18 — Matthew 25:34 (KJV)Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
- 10:18 — Matthew 25:34 (KJV)Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
- 10:19 — Romans 15:13 (KJV)Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.
Notes
- 10:4
"Smith's writings contain many similar phrases as the Book of Mormon...'Or, in other words' is another common phrase of Smith's but not in the Bible. This phrase is in the 1830 Book of Mormon Preface, the Bok of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and Smith's revision of the Bible and other writings, such as his 1838 Liberty Jail letter published in the Times and Seasons." Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Joseph Smith's Plagiarism of the Bible in the Book of Mormon, p. 40.
See Preface 1830 Book of Mormon; 1 Nephi 8:2; 1 Nephi 10:4; Mosiah 7:27; Alma 32:16; 3 Nephi 6:20; D&C 10:17; D&C 61:23; D&C 95:17; Luke 6:29-30 JST; Luke 17:37 JST; Mark 9:3 JST; Joseph Smith's 1838 Liberty Jail Letter, Times and Seasons, vol. 1 no. 6, p. 83.
For additional examples Smith's common phrases, see: 1 Nephi 19:2; 2 Nephi 28:22; 2 Nephi 26:15, and 2 Nephi 28:16.
- 10:4
Based off of 1 Nephi 10:4 and 19:8, the exact timing of the coming of Christ was known by the ancient Nephites from the time they left the Old World. Strangely, this knowledge seems unknown to Alma, who states, "And now we only wait to hear the joyful news declared unto us by the mouth of angels, of his coming; for the time cometh, we do not know how soon. Would to God that it might be in my day; but let it be sooner or later, in it I will rejoice" (Alma 13:25).
Brent Metcalfe theorizes that because Joseph Smith dictated the opening portion of the Book of Mormon last—a position also held by scholars such as Grant Hardy—he may have forgotten, by the time he composed Nephi, that Alma had stated he was unaware of the timing of Christ’s birth. This explanation is arguably more plausible than assuming that such significant information would not have been preserved through Nephite tradition or written records. -Metcalfe, New Approaches, pp. 417-418.
- 10:4-11
In Ephesians 3, Paul describes the “mystery of Christ” as something hidden from all previous generations but revealed in the apostolic era. In Ephesians 3:4–6, this mystery is that Gentiles are now equal heirs, members, and partakers in God’s promises through Christ—without the former distinctions of Jewish law. Paul reinforces in Colossians 1:26 and Romans 16:25 that this truth was not known in earlier ages, meaning it was not fully understood by Old Testament figures.
This is supported in Acts 10, where Peter struggles to accept Gentile inclusion even after revelation, and in Acts 15, where early Christians debate whether Gentiles must follow Jewish law. Likewise, Hebrews 11 and First Peter indicate that earlier prophets only saw partial foreshadowings of Christ, not the full picture.
In contrast, the Book of Mormon (e.g., 1 Nephi 10; 1 Nephi 14) portrays ancient prophets as clearly teaching about the Messiah, the gospel, and Gentile inclusion with New Testament-level clarity, including ideas similar to Romans 11.
This creates a chronological and theological conflict: if Paul is correct that this mystery was only revealed in the first century, then the Book of Mormon’s depiction of earlier prophets possessing that same knowledge suggests an anachronism—projecting later doctrine into an earlier time.
"When one begins to read the Book of Mormon, if he is well-acquainted with the Bible, he will at once be impressed with the large scale use of the biblical materials in the book. Not only is there an unskilled mimicking of the style of the King James Version, but there is an artificial clarity added to that portion of the Book of Mormon that claims to date from the Old Testament period. This contrived clarity is the result of writing back into that Old Testament period New Testament words, phrases and quotations, as well as the introduction of New Testament concepts and teachings into that time-frame... The usual Mormon defense is that such knowledge was supernaturally made known to the people in America, just as God in a vision showed Ezekiel that Jerusalem was about to fall and the temple to be destroyed, or Peter given a vision of Cornelius before he met him in person. Such an explanation might be more readily accepted if the Book of Mormon had presented its material in the format of a vision. Instead it introduces its material in much the same way that a nineteenth century frontier preacher introduced biblical quotations into his sermons. The frequency with which the Book of Mormon introduces this chronologically misplaced material into its text would require that God supernaturally provided this American colony with virtually the entire New Testament text, as well as those portions of the Old Testament which postdated their departure for America.... passages from the New Testament... are sprinkled generously into the speeches and sermons of the Book of Mormon characters in the same manner as one might find them in the sermons of a Methodist or Baptist preacher of Joseph Smith's day. This type of usage implies an acquaintance with the New Testament books themselves. Only after knowing the entire work can one select from it appropriate words and phrases to employ in this sermonic manner. It is naive to suggest that in every one of those instances God made known each of those biblical phrases and quotations so that the Old Testament Book of Mormon speakers could work them into their message. It is far more reasonable to believe that the insertions of such phrases and quotes came from one who already had the New Testament in hand before him while composing the Book of Mormon... The really fatal blow to the proposal that the New Testament material in the Old Testament portion of the Book of Mormon is due to Joseph Smith's employment of such phrases in the process of translating the book is that such material goes much deeper than the mere use of words and phrases. New Testament concepts, interpretations and theology are all worked into the text itself." -Wesley P. Walters, "The Use of the Old Testament in the Book of Mormon," (Master's thesis, Covenant Theological Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri, 1981), pp. 7, 10-13.
LDS author Grant Hardy writes, "In 1831, Alexander Campbell, one of the book's first critics (and certainly the first one to read it carefully), famously observed that it seemed to weigh in on all the popular religious questions of the day, including 'infant baptism, ordination, the trinity, regeneration, repentance, justification, the fall of man, the atonement, transubstantiation, fasting, penance, church government, religious experience, the call to the ministry , the general resurrection, eternal punishment, who may baptize, and even the question of freemasonry, republican government, and the right of the man.' This is a fair list, and references to these topics-or their analogous counterparts-can be found throughout the Book of Mormon." -Hardy, Understanding the Book of Mormon, p. 184