Sacred Texts: Mormons

Doctrine and Convenants: 123. The duty of the Saints toward their persecutors as set forth by Joseph Smith while a prisoner in the jail at Liberty, Missouri, March 1839.

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This is Section 123 of the Doctrine and Covenants, a canonical scripture of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, presented as a revelation given through Joseph Smith in 1839, likely from Liberty Jail during the Missouri period of violent persecution against early Latter-day Saints. The text directs church members to systematically document the wrongs committed against them: gathering affidavits, cataloging property losses and personal injuries, identifying persecutors by name, and collecting hostile publications about the church. This documentation project is framed not merely as legal or historical record-keeping but as a religious obligation — a duty owed to God, angels, future generations, and the victims' own families — with the purpose of presenting the full account to national government and the world at large. The passage argues that the persecutions stem from a deep spiritual corruption inherited through false religious creeds, which it characterizes in apocalyptic terms as the "very mainspring of all corruption" groaning across the earth. A distinctive claim is that completing this documentary work is a precondition for divine intervention — only after exhausting this "last effort" can the Saints fully invoke God's promised protection and judgment. The section closes with a call to patient, cheerful action, using the image of a small helm steering a large ship through a storm as an analogy for how seemingly minor, methodical efforts can determine ultimate outcomes.

Doctrine and Convenants: 123. The duty of the Saints toward their persecutors as set forth by Joseph Smith while a prisoner in the jail at Liberty, Missouri, March 1839.

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