bomcanon
2 Nephi 12
Nephi quotes Isaiah 2–4 as a unified prophetic unit, setting the last-days mountain of Jehovah's house — the literal Zion from which law goes forth — against the full catalog of pride, idolatry, and self-sufficiency that characterizes the nations in the day of the Lord. The inversion is precise: every high thing — cedars, towers, ships, ornament, human breath — is brought low when Jehovah alone stands exalted. The daughters of Zion passage is not merely moral rebuke; it marks the stripping of a people who substituted adornment for covenant holiness. The chapter closes with the millennial promise of cleansing by the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning, and the branch of the Lord — a Davidic title — made beautiful for those who escaped.
1
The word that Isaiah, the son of Amoz, saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem:
2
And it shall come to pass in the last days, when the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it.
3
And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
4
And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plow-shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks—nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
5
O house of Jacob, come ye and let us walk in the light of the Lord; yea, come, for ye have all gone astray, every one to his wicked ways.
6
Therefore, O Lord, thou hast forsaken thy people, the house of Jacob, because they be replenished from the east, and hearken unto soothsayers like the Philistines, and they please themselves in the children of strangers.
7
Their land also is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures; their land is also full of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots.
8
Their land is also full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made.
9
And the mean man boweth not down, and the great man humbleth himself not, therefore, forgive him not.
10
O ye wicked ones, enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for the fear of the Lord and the glory of his majesty shall smite thee.
11
And it shall come to pass that the lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.
12
For the day of the Lord of Hosts soon cometh upon all nations, yea, upon every one; yea, upon the proud and lofty, and upon every one who is lifted up, and he shall be brought low.
13
Yea, and the day of the Lord shall come upon all the cedars of Lebanon, for they are high and lifted up; and upon all the oaks of Bashan;
14
And upon all the high mountains, and upon all the hills, and upon all the nations which are lifted up, and upon every people;
15
And upon every high tower, and upon every fenced wall;
16
And upon all the ships of the sea, and upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures.
17
And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low; and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.
18
And the idols he shall utterly abolish.
19
And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for the fear of the Lord shall come upon them and the glory of his majesty shall smite them, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.
20
In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which he hath made for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats;
21
To go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for the fear of the Lord shall come upon them and the majesty of his glory shall smite them, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.
22
Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils; for wherein is he to be accounted of?
