3 Nephi 15:3 Textual Variants

Here the adverb away was accidentally omitted in the 1874 RLDS edition. The need for the word seems obvious given the phraseology “old things had passed away” just before in verse 2; thus the subsequent RLDS edition (in 1892) restored the away in verse 3. (In the printer’s manuscript, Oliver Cowdery accidentally overwrote the original y of away as a g, an obvious scribal slip.)

In this passage, Jesus is referring to his language earlier in 3 Nephi 12:47, where he said “old things are done away and all things have become new”. Note that the earlier text has a different verb (“are done away”, not “are passed away” or “have passed away”). But in both passages, the adverb away is there. Here in 3 Nephi 15 nearby references to this topic also use the perfect phrase “have passed away”:

• 3 Nephi 15:2
  • for they understood not the saying that old things had passed away and that all things had become new
• 3 Nephi 15:7
  • and because I said unto you that old things hath passed away I do not destroy that which hath been spoken concerning things which is to come

We also get this same basic language later in the text when Ether prophesies about what will happen when the New Jerusalem is established:

• Ether 13:9
  • and there shall be a new heaven and a new earth and they shall be like unto the old save the old have passed away and all things have become new

Clearly, the adverb away is correct in 3 Nephi 15:3.