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Second Nephi — Chapter 25

¹ Now I, Nephi, will tell you the meaning of the things I wrote down. Isaiah wrote many things which were hard for many of my people to understand, because they do not understand the way the Jews prophesy.

² I have not taught them many of the things the Jews know, because the Jews did many wicked things, and many of their ways are evil.

³ So I write to my people, and to all who will come after and read what I write, so they will know that God’s judgments come on all nations, just as he has said.

⁴ So listen, O my people, who are part of the House of Israel, and pay attention to what I will say. Isaiah’s words are hard for you to understand, but they are easy to understand for those filled with the spirit of prophecy. I will give you a prophecy by the spirit in me, so it will as plain to understand as I have been plain since the time I left Jerusalem with my father. I love to be plain with my people so they will learn.

⁵ Yes, I love Isaiah’s words, because I came from Jerusalem and have seen the Jews’ ways, and I know the Jews understand the way the prophets talked. No other people understand what has been said to the Jews unless they have been taught the ways of the Jews.

⁶ I, Nephi, have not taught my children the ways of the Jews, but I myself lived at Jerusalem, and know the lands close to it. I have told my children about God’s judgments which have come on the Jews, just as Isaiah has said, and I will not write them.

⁷ But I will write down my own plain prophecy. It is easy to understand, so no one will make any mistake about it. Even so, people will know when Isaiah’s prophecies come true.

⁸ [Isaiah’s prophecies] are very important. I want to say this to anyone (especially to my own people) who does not think so: I know they will be very important to them in the last days, when they will understand them, so I have written them down for their own good.

⁹ Just as one generation of Jews has been destroyed because of their sins, so they have been destroyed from generation to generation because of their sins. None of them were destroyed until after they had been warned by the Lord’s prophets.

¹⁰ They were also told about the destruction that would come on them right after my father left Jerusalem, but they hardened their hearts. I prophesy that they have been destroyed, all except for those who were made slaves and taken to Babylon.

¹¹ I say this because of the spirit in me. Even though they have been taken away, they will come back again and own the land of Jerusalem. They will live again in the land of their ancestors.

¹² But they will have wars and talk of wars. When the day comes that the Only Begotten Son of the Father (even the Father of heaven and earth) comes and lives with them and shows himself to them, they will reject him because of their sins, and their hard hearts, and their stubbornness.

¹³ They will kill him on a cross. After being in a grave for three days, he will rise from the dead with healing in his wings. Those who believe in him will be saved in God’s kingdom. My soul loves to prophesy about him, because I have seen his day, and my heart praises his holy name.

¹⁴ After the Messiah rises from the dead and shows himself to all his people who believe in him, Jerusalem will be destroyed again, [because of those who] fight against God and the people of his church.

¹⁵ The Jews will be scattered among all nations. Babylon will also have been destroyed, so the Jews will be scattered by other nations.

¹⁶ After they are scattered, and after the Lord God uses other nations to punish them for many generations, until they believe in Christ, the Son of God, and his atonement, which is for all people — when the day comes that they believe in Christ, and pray to the Father in his name, and do not look for another Messiah, then they will believe these things.

¹⁷ The Lord will bring his people back again from being fallen and lost. He will do a wonderful and amazing work among people.

¹⁸ He will bring his words to them, and his words will judge them at the last day. His words will be given to them so they will know he was the true Messiah, whom they rejected. They will know that they should not look for any other Messiah to come, because no other Messiah will come except a false Messiah, to trick them. The prophets talked about only one Messiah — the one the Jews will reject.

¹⁹ The prophets say the Messiah will come six hundred years after my father left Jerusalem. The prophets say, and God’s angel says, that his name will be Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

²⁰ Now, brothers and sisters, I have said this plainly so you cannot make any mistake about it. As the Lord God lives who brought Israel out of the land of Egypt, and gave Moses power to heal the people after the snakes bit them (if they would only look at the brass snake he made and put up in front of them), and gave him power to hit a rock and have water come out of it — yes, just as those things are true, as the Lord lives, there is no other name under heaven that can save people except Jesus Christ.

²¹ This is why the Lord God has promised me that these things I write will be kept and protected and handed down to my descendants, from generation to generation, so the promise made to Joseph will be kept — that his descendants would not be destroyed for as long as the earth stands.

²² So these things will go from generation to generation as long as the earth stands. They will go as God wants them to, and the nations who have them will be judged from them, as it is written.

²³ We work hard to write so our children will know, and our brothers and sisters, too, that they must believe in Christ, and make peace with God, because we know it is his grace that saves us, after all we can do.

²⁴ Even though we believe in Christ, we keep the Law of Moses, looking forward to Christ, when the Law will be finished.

²⁵ This was why the Law was given, and why the Law is dead to us. We are alive in Christ because of our faith. But we keep the Law because of the commandments.

²⁶ We talk about Christ, we are happy in Christ, we teach about Christ, we prophesy about Christ, and we write down our prophecies so our children will know to whom they should go to have their sins forgiven.

²⁷ We talk about the Law so our children will know about the deadness of the Law, so they will look forward to the life which is in Christ, and know why the Law was given. — And so that after the Law is finished in Christ, they should not harden their hearts against him when the Law is no more.

²⁸ Now, my people, you are a stubborn people, so I have talked plainly to you, so you cannot help but understand. The words I have spoken will be a witness against you, because they are enough to teach anyone the right way. The right way is to believe in Christ, and not deny him, because if you deny him, you deny the prophets and the Law.

²⁹ Now, the right way is to believe in Christ, and not deny him. Christ is the Holy One of Israel, so you must bow down before him and pray to him with all your strength, mind, power, and with your whole soul. If you do this, you will not be thrown out.

³⁰ You must keep all of God’s commandments in the Law of Moses until the Law of Moses is finished.