Sacred Texts: Mormons

Doctrine and Convenants: 45. Revelation through Joseph Smith to the Church, Kirtland, Ohio, March 7, 1831.

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This is Section 45 of the *Doctrine and Covenants*, a Latter-day Saint scriptural text comprising revelations received by Joseph Smith, placing it within the tradition of 19th-century American restorationist prophecy. The text is structured as a first-person divine address — Christ speaking directly to the early LDS church — and functions primarily as an extended apocalyptic prophecy modeled closely on Matthew 24 (the Olivet Discourse), with Smith's revelatory additions woven in. It traces a sequence of end-times signs: the scattering and eventual gathering of Israel, wars and desolations, cosmic disturbances, Christ's Second Coming in glory, the binding of Satan, and the inauguration of a millennial reign. Distinctively, the section introduces the concept of a "New Jerusalem" or Zion to be built in the American West as a city of refuge for the righteous — a concrete geographical and political claim that sets this text apart from traditional Christian eschatology. It also instructs Smith to translate the New Testament as a prerequisite for fuller prophetic understanding, and commands the early Saints to gather westward and purchase land for this future holy city. The text is notable for its urgent, imminent framing — wars "at your very doors" — directing apocalyptic expectation toward the immediate circumstances of the 1831 American frontier church.

Doctrine and Convenants: 45. Revelation through Joseph Smith to the Church, Kirtland, Ohio, March 7, 1831.

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