“Began to Be Lifted Up in Pride”

Monte S. Nyman

The second step of the Nephite decline began in the ten years discussed here. Pride raised its ugly head (v. 24). “Name brand” clothing replaced “let all thy garments be plain, and their beauty the beauty of the work of thine own hands” (D&C 42:40; see also vv. 41–42). The Nephites no longer lived the law of consecration (4 Nephi 1:25), the law that would bring about a Zion society, and the law that will be lived during the millennium. The law had made the Nephite society equal in “earthly things also, for the obtaining of heavenly things”(D&C 78:5). Instead, the people divided into classes, and built up churches unto themselves to get gain rather than unto Christ (4 Nephi 1:26). Like the Nephites just prior to the appearance of Christ among them in about A.D. 30, many had turned from righteousness to wickedness in just a ten-year period (see v. 27 below). The turn of these previous Nephites, “like the dog to his vomit,” had happened in just six years (3 Nephi 7:8), but the telestial type people had not yet been removed from among them and they did not have as far to turn. However, the decline of the Zion people as described in 4 Nephi has begun, and things are about to get worse.

Book of Mormon Commentary: Divine Ministry, the First Gospel

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