Book of Mormon (Plain English Version)/1 Nephi/Chapter 20
Nephi writes Isaiah's words from the brass plates...
(compare 1 Nephi, chapter 20)
The Lord's words, first spoken to Isaiah:
Listen, oh house of Jacob (Israel), who are baptized, and who make oaths in the name of the Lord and speak of God, yet do it not in truth nor in righteousness. You call yourselves holy, but you do not put the God of Israel first in your lives, whose name is The Lord of Hosts.
From the beginning, I have told you, through prophets, things that have happened. I have spoken and revealed them suddenly. I did this because I knew how obstinate and stubborn you are as a people. I prophesied to you of things that I would do before they happened, fearing that unless I did this, you would say, "Our idols and graven images have caused them to happen.”
Having seen and heard their fulfillment, will you now declare them to others? Will you also declare that I have shown you new, previously hidden things? They are things revealed now, but not before. Otherwise, you would say, "We already knew about them (without a prophet)." You did not hear or know of these things before they were revealed to you, for I knew you would be a treacherous people, born into a sinful state.
But in spite of your sinfulness, for my name's sake I will put my anger aside, and for my praise I will not completely destroy you, oh house of Israel, yet I will refine and choose you in the furnace of affliction. I will do this for my own sake, for I will not allow my name to be dishonored nor give my glory to another.
Listen to me, oh house of Jacob, which I have called out of the world, for Iam He who was at the first, and who will be at the last. My hand laid the foundation of the earth. My right hand reaches throughout the heavens. I call to them and they obey me at once.
Assemble, all the house of Israel, and listen. Who among you has declared these things to you? It is he, whom I, the Lord, have loved. I will fulfill his prophecies of the house of Israel, and through him bring my justice upon the worldly. I have called and raised him up to prophesy, and he will fulfill his calling well.
These are the words of this servant of the Lord:
"Come near me, for I have spoken openly from the beginning from my first declaration. The Lord God and His Spirit have sent me. The Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, says,
- ‘I, the Lord your God, who teaches you for your profit, and who leads you, have sent you my servant.
- If only you had obeyed my commandments--then your peace would have distilled upon you as the dews from
- heaven, and your righteousness would have forever flowed to you as the waves of the sea.
- Your descendants would have been as many as the sands upon the seashore, and their names would not have been cut off from before me.'
Now I (Isaiah) say, give up your worldliness and flee your conspiring enemies. With a voice of singing, declare to the ends of the earth that the Lord has redeemed all the house of Israel! For the Lord led the children of Israel out of bondage through the desert and caused water to flow out of the rock. Even though the Lord has done all this, and even greater things to save His children, the Lord says,
- ‘There is no peace for the wicked.”