(Isa. 48:11; Ex. 20:7; Mosiah 13:15; D&C 136:21; 63:61–62)
Recently our family was viewing what was supposed to be a wholesome movie on videotape. Suddenly, one of the actors used a vulgar expression. Embarrassed, we began to smooth this over for our ten-year-old daughter. She quickly assured us that we needn’t worry because she heard worse than that every day from the boys and girls at her school… . The nature and extent of profanity and vulgarity in our society is a measure of its deterioration.
I cannot remember when I first heard profane and vulgar expressions in common use around me. I suppose it was from adults in the barnyard or the barracks. Today, our young people hear such expressions from boys and girls in their grade schools, from actors on stage and in the movies, from popular novels, and even from public officials and sports heroes. Television and videotapes bring profanity and vulgarity into our homes.
For many in our day, the profane has become commonplace and the vulgar has become acceptable. Surely this is one fulfillment of the Book of Mormon prophecy that in the last days “there shall be great pollutions upon the face of the earth” (Morm. 8:31).
The names of God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ, are sacred. The prophet Isaiah taught that the Lord will not suffer these names to be dishonored—”polluted” as the scriptures say. (See 1 Ne. 20:11; Isa. 48:11.)
(Dallin H. Oaks, Ensign, May 1986, 49.)
The Lord implies that Israel will suffer even more because he will not allow his “name to be polluted” by his chosen people (1 Ne. 20:11), and this greater affliction will include Judah’s deportation at the hands of the king of Babylon. At the same time, however, Jehovah will not “give [his] glory unto another” (1 Ne. 20:11, parallel to Isa. 48:11). In other words, regardless of Israel’s transgressions, God will not select another group to be his “chosen” people.
(Andrew C. Skinner, Isaiah in the Book of Mormon, ed. Donald W. Parry and John W. Welch [Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1998], 101.)
The history of the house of Israel is the history of a martyred nation, suffering for the welfare of other nations—whatever may be said of the immediate cause of their woes, the transgressions that justified the Shepherd in bringing upon His sheep troubles that were doubtless among the “offenses” that “must needs come.”… The chosen people were scattered over the world, in order that Gospel truth, following the red track of their martyrdom, might make its way more readily among the peoples with whom they were mingled.
(Orson F. Whitney, Saturday Night Thoughts [Salt Lake City: The Deseret News, 1921], 138.)