Especially effective among the complaints brought before and against God has been the charge of the killing of innocent animals and children in the flood. When Adam complained about it in heaven, God told him he could not even begin to imagine the extent of God’s own love for all his creatures. And to Ezra, championing the animals, he explains that animals have no conception of death, the terror of which lies all in the anticipation. They don’t know about it until it strikes them and it is over.
The same mercy is shown to humans. All the recurrent “times of wickedness and vengeance” follow the same pattern. We have noted from the first how the axial change is always very swift and sudden. As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man and also in our own “days of wickedness and vengeance” (Moses 7:60 [Gen. 4:22]). It has happened before, and each time with business as usual: “They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all” (Luke 17:26–27 [Luke 10:3]). If it must come, it is made quick and painless. Likewise, in the great axial age of Abraham, “They did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all” (Luke 17:28–29 [Luke 10:3]). Whether by a tsunami or a firestorm, or by both as in the Book of Mormon, death is almost instantaneous by suffocation. It could not be more merciful.
Faith, Forgiveness & the Ten Lepers
Four short sayings (offenses, forgiveness without limit, faith the size of a seed, and servants who have earned nothing), and then ten lepers, of whom one comes back. The chapter turns on that one, because the Pharisees ask next when the kingdom of God is coming, and the answer is that it is already standing in front of them.
Note. The Joseph Smith Translation changes this chapter more than any other in the era, and it changes the ending most. Where the King James leaves a riddle about a body and eagles, the revision explains it: the taking is a gathering, the eagles are the saints, and the earth that has grown old like a garment is left cleansed. Joseph did the same thing to the same proverb in his revision of Matthew 24.
? How to read this edition
The reading is the Joseph Smith Translation, in the text of the Covenant Christian Edition, carried beside each Gospel and set against the King James baseline. Headers give both numbering systems: the CCE chapter and verse, and the traditional KJV reference.
1Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offenses will come, but woe to him through whom they come. 2It would be better for him that a millstone were hung about his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should offend one of these little ones. 3Take heed to yourselves. If your brother trespass against you, rebuke him, and if he repent, forgive him. 4And if he trespass against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn to you again, saying, I repent — you shall forgive him.
5And the apostles said unto him, Lord, increase our faith. 6And the Lord said, If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you might say unto this sycamore tree, Be plucked up by the roots and be planted in the sea — and it should obey you.
7But who of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him when he has come from the field, Go and sit down to a meal? 8Will he not rather say unto him, Make ready that which I may eat, and gird yourself, and serve me until I have eaten and drunk, and afterward, eventually, you shall eat and drink? 9Does he thank that servant because he does the things which were commanded him? I say unto you, nay. 10So likewise you, when you shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants, we have done that which was no more than our duty to do.
11It came to pass as he went to Jerusalem that he passed through the midst of Galilee and Samaria. 12And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men who were lepers who stood afar off, 13and they lifted up their voices and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us! 14And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go show yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, as they went, they were cleansed. 15One of them, when he saw he was healed, turned back and with a loud voice glorified God, 16and fell down on his face at his Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks; and he was a Samaritan. 17And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? 18There are not found that returned to give glory to God save this stranger. 19And he said unto him, Arise, go your way; your faith has made you whole.
20And when he was demanded of the Pharisees when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God comes not with observation, 21neither shall they say, Look here, or, Look there. For behold, the kingdom of God is within you has already come unto you.
22And he said unto his disciples, The days will come when ye shall they will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and ye they shall not see it. 23And if they shall say to you, See here, or, See there, go not after them nor follow them; 24for as the lightning, that lighteneth the light of the morning that shines out of the one part under heaven and lightens to the other part under heaven, so shall also the Son of Man be in his day. 25But first he must suffer many things and be rejected of this generation. 26And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man. 27They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all. 28Likewise also, as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built — 29but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. 30Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.
31In that day, he which the disciple who shall be on the housetop and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away; and he who is in the field, let him likewise not return back. 32Remember Lot’s wife. 33Whoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it, and whoever shall lose his life shall preserve it. 34I tell you, in that night, there shall be two in one bed, the one shall be taken and the other shall be left. 35Two shall be grinding together, the one shall be taken and the other left. 36Two shall be in the field, the one shall be taken and the other left.
37And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord, shall they be taken? And he said unto them, Wherever the body is gathered, or in other words, wherever the saints are gathered, there will the eagles be gathered together, or there will the remainder be gathered together. This he spoke signifying the gathering of his saints and of angels descending and gathering the remainder unto them — the one from the bed, the other from the grinding, and the other from the field, wherever he wills. For truly there shall be new heavens and a new earth wherein dwells righteousness. And there shall be no unclean thing, for the earth becoming old even as a garment, having waxed in corruption; wherefore, it vanishes away and the footstool remains sanctified, cleansed from all sin.
Faith Works by Words, and the Last Sermon
Faith, Then, Works by Words
The apostles ask for more faith (v. 5), and Jesus answers with a saying about what a man of faith may say to a tree (v. 6). The seventh of the Lectures on Faith, given to the elders’ school in Kirtland in 1834–35 and printed in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants, quotes that saying and explains it: a man who works by faith works by words, not by physical force. The lecture keeps the King James “sycamine tree,” where the Joseph Smith Translation reads “sycamore.”
Lectures on Faith, Lecture Seventh, ¶3, in Doctrine and Covenants (Kirtland, 1835), pp. [63]–64 · canonized in the CCE as Teachings and Commandments 110 · Joseph Smith Papers ↗Also recorded in Teachings and Commandments 110, Lecture 7:3.
Let us here offer some explanation in relation to faith that our meaning may be clearly comprehended: We ask, then, what are we to understand by a man’s working by faith? We answer: We understand that when a man works by faith he works by mental exertion instead of physical force: it is by words instead of exerting his physical powers, with which every being works when he works by faith—God said, Let there be light, and there was light— Joshua spake and the great lights which God had created stood still—Elijah commanded and the heavens were stayed for the space of three years and six months, so that it did not rain: He again commanded, and the heavens gave forth rain,—all this was done by faith; and the Savior says, If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, say to this mountain, remove, and it will remove; or say to that sycamine tree, Be ye plucked up and planted in the midst of the sea, and it shall obey you. Faith, then, works by words; and with these its mightiest works have been, and will be performed.
The Last Sermon, and the Verse He Began With
Sunday morning, June 16, 1844, at the grove east of the temple in Nauvoo: eleven days before Carthage, and nine days after the Nauvoo Expositor accused him of teaching a plurality of Gods. It was raining. He answered the charge by naming a verse from this chapter: as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the Son of Man. Then he said that if it rained he would preach anyway. The History names the verse as Luke 17:26, and the Joseph Smith Papers key Thomas Bullock’s line to Matthew 24:37 and Luke 17:26.
Discourse, 16 June 1844, the grove east of the temple, Nauvoo, Illinois · History, 1838–1856, volume F-1, p. 101, from Thomas Bullock’s report (History of the Church 6:473–79; Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp. 369–76, for the whole sermon) · Joseph Smith Papers ↗Also recorded in Words of Joseph Smith, 16 June 1844 (Sunday morning).
… now you know that of late some malicious and corrupt men have sprung up and apostatized from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints; and they declare that the Prophet believes in a plurality of Gods, and lo and behold we have discovered a very great secret, they cry, The Prophet says there are many Gods, and this proves that he has fallen.
It has been my intention for a long time to take up this subject, and lay it clearly before the people, and show what my faith is in relation to this interesting matter. I have contemplated the saying of Jesus (Luke 17 ch. 26 v.) ‘And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man’. And if it rains I’ll preach this doctrine, for the truth shall be preached. I will preach on the plurality of Gods. I have selected this text for that express purpose. I wish to declare I have always, and in all congregations when I have preached on the subject of the Deity, it has been the plurality of Gods. It has been preached by the Elders fifteen years.
What he preached after this is not the subject of this section: he went on for the rest of the morning on the plurality of Gods, and closed by saying he could have spoken three or four hours more had it not been for the rain. Only the opening is given here, because only the opening bears on Luke 17. The reading is the History’s text, which fills out Bullock’s notes; switch to “Scribal accounts” for Bullock’s record as he actually wrote it, and for William P. McIntire’s minutes, which Words of Joseph Smith prints under his heading “Gen. Joseph Smiths Last public Discorce on Doctrine.”
Why the End Comes Quickly
Nibley reads verses 26 through 29 not as a threat but as an argument about mercy. The detail the parable insists on is that life was entirely ordinary right up to the last morning (eating, drinking, buying, planting) and that the end, when it came, was instantaneous. He takes that to be the point rather than the horror.