The twenty-ninth chapter of Isaiah is similarly expanded from twenty-four short to thirty-two long verses. Verses eleven and twelve of the King James version read:—
"And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed.
"And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned."
The Smith-Rigdon version expands this as follows:—"11. And it shall come to pass, that the Lord God shall bring forth unto you the words of a book; and they shall be the words of them which have slumbered.
"12. And behold, the book shall be sealed; and in the book shall be a revelation from God, from the beginning of the world to the ending thereof.
"13. Wherefore, because of the things which are sealed up, the things which are sealed shall not be delivered in the day of the wickedness and abominations of the people. Wherefore, the book shall be kept from them.
"14. But the book shall be delivered unto a man, and he shall deliver the words of the book, which are the words of those who have slumbered in the dust; and he shall deliver these words unto another, but the words that are sealed he shall not deliver, neither shall he deliver the book.
"15. For the book shall be sealed by the power of God, and the revelation which was sealed shall be kept in the book until the own due time of the Lord, that they may come forth; for, behold, they reveal all things from the foundation of the world unto the end thereof."
No one will question that a Rigdon who would palm off such a fraudulent work as this upon the men who looked to him as a religious teacher would hesitate to suggest to Smith the scheme for a new Bible. During the work of translation, as we learn from Smith's autobiography, the translators saw a wonderful vision, in which they "beheld the glory of the Son on the right hand of the Father," and holy angels, and the glory of the worlds, terrestrial and celestial. Soon after this they received an explanation from heaven of some obscure texts in Revelation. Thus, the sea of glass (iv. 6) "is the earth in its sanctified, immortal, and eternal state"; by the little book which was eaten by John (chapter x) "we are to understand that it was a mission and an ordinance for him to gather the tribes of Israel."
It may be added that this translation is discarded by the modern Mormon church in Utah. The Deseret Evening News, the church organ at Salt Lake City, said on February 21, 1900:—