Tap a Gospel to show or hide its column. Narrow to any two to read them side by side.
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.
12Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee; And Jesus departed into Galilee,
13and leaving Nazareth in Zebulun, he came and dwelled in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast in the borders of Nephthalim, 14that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, 15The land of Zebulun and the land of Nephthalim, in the way of the sea beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles; 16the people who sat in darkness saw a great light, and unto them that sat in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up. 17From that time, Jesus began to preach and to say, Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
23And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people who believed on his name. 24And his fame went throughout all Syria. And they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with diverse diseases and torments, and those who were possessed with devils, and those who were lunatic, and those that had the palsy, and he healed them.
25And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and Decapolis, and Jerusalem, and Judea, and beyond Jordan.
14Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, 15and saying, The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe the gospel.
Joseph Smith is not commenting on this passage, and the words are shown as a resonance. At the April 1843 conference, warning the elders away from speculating on the beasts of Revelation, he told them what to preach instead, and it is the message this section opens with: “repent ye for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand repent and believe the gospel” (Matthew 4:17; Mark 1:15). The line is in William Clayton’s report. Clayton’s own rough notes give it more briefly, and Willard Richards’s record of the same moment has “declare the first principles” instead; switch to “Scribal accounts” to compare them.
Discourse, 8 April 1843, Nauvoo · William Clayton’s report, as printed in Words of Joseph Smith (cf. Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 292)
Also recorded in Words of Joseph Smith, 8 April 1843 (Saturday morning).
Again there is no revelation to prove that things do not exist in heaven as I have set forth, and we never can comprehend the things of God and of heaven but by revelation. We may spiritualize and express opinions to all eternity but that is no authority.
Ye Elders of Israel hearken to my voice and when ye are sent into the world to preach, preach and cry aloud “repent ye for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand repent and believe the gospel.” Never meddle with the visions of beasts and subjects you do not understand. Er Brown when you go to Palmyra dont say any thing about the beast, but preach those things the Lord has told you to preach about, repentance and baptism for the remission of sins.
Barker reads “the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand” against the Jubilee: Jesus began his ministry in the tenth Jubilee, when Melchizedek and the final Day of Atonement were expected.
After his time in the desert he returned to Galilee announcing “the time is fulfilled” i.e. the tenth Jubilee is inaugurated and “Melchizedek” is here, “the Kingdom of God is at hand, repent”, because the final Day of Atonement was also at hand, “and believe the good news” of the Jubilee release.
Jesus was proclaiming himself as Melchizedek, and his hearers were very angry: ‘All in the synagogue were filled with wrath’ (Luke 4.28 [Luke 4:4]).
Similarly, the Melchizedek text itself, such as remains of it, describes the events of the tenth jubilee, when the final great Day of Atonement was expected. St Mark summed up the teaching of Jesus as ‘The time is fulfilled’ - what time? - ‘the Kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the Gospel.’ Repent because the great Day of Atonement was at hand (Mark 1.11 [Mark 1:2]), and Melchizedek had come. Jesus was baptised and began his public ministry at exactly the time Melchizedek was expected to appear: in the first seven years of the tenth jubilee. When Hebrews 7 identified Jesus as Melchizedek, this was not an isolated and unrepresentative description, an author casting around for some priesthood to claim for Jesus who was clearly not of the tribe of Levi.
The primary proclamation of the Christians was ‘Jesus is Lord’, and by this they meant that Jesus was Yahweh. He, like the ancient royal high priests, had been Immanuel, as Matthew said in his Gospel (Matthew 1.23 [Matt. 1:5]). The earliest Christian reading of the Old Testament was unanimous is understanding that Jesus was the One who appeared to the patriarchs, that he was Yahweh.
When Constantine had a great church built at Mamre early in the fourth century, it was because the Son of God had appeared there to Abraham, the incident recorded in Genesis 18.