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I continued to pursue my common vocation in life until the twenty-first of September 1823,
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All the time suffering severe persecution at the hands of all classes of men, both religious and irreligious, because I continued to affirm that I had seen a vision.
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After many days I fell into transgressions and sinned in many things which brought a wound upon my soul.
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There were many things which transpired that cannot be written.
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My father’s family had suffered many persecutions and afflictions; I was left to all kinds of temptations; and mingling with all kinds of society.
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During this time, as is common to most, or all youths, I fell into many vices and follies;
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But as my accusers are and have been forward to accuse me of being guilty of gross and outrageous violations of the peace and good order of the community.
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I take the occasion to remark that, I have not, neither can it be sustained, in truth, been guilty of wronging or injuring any man or society of men;
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And those imperfections to which I allude, and which I have often had occasion to lament, were light, and too often, vain mind, exhibiting a foolish and trifling conversation.
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¶ I only add that I do not, nor ever have, pretended to be any other than a man subject to passion and liable, without the assisting grace of the Savior, to deviate from that perfect path in which all men are commanded to walk.
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But this will not seem very strange to anyone who recollects my youth and is acquainted with my native cheery temperament.
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¶ And it came to pass when I was seventeen years of age I called again upon the Lord and he shewed unto me a heavenly vision.
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In consequence of my weaknesses, I often felt condemned for my weakness and imperfections;
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And, on the evening of the above mentioned twenty-first of September, after I had retired to my bed for the night,
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I betook myself to prayer and supplication to Almighty God for forgiveness of all my sins and follies, and also for a manifestation to me, that I might know of my state and standing before Him;
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For I had full confidence in obtaining a divine manifestation, as I previously had done.
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For behold, an angel of the Lord came and stood before me.
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While I was thus in the act of calling upon God, I discovered a light appearing in my room, which continued to increase until the room was lighter than at noonday, when immediately a personage appeared at my bedside, standing in the air, for his feet did not touch the floor.
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He had on a loose robe of most exquisite whiteness.
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It was a whiteness beyond anything earthly I had ever seen; nor do I believe that any earthly thing could be made to appear so exceedingly white and brilliant.
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His hands were naked and his arms also, a little above the wrist, so, also were his feet naked, as were his legs, a little above the ankles.
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His head and neck were also bare; I could discover that he had no other clothing on but this robe, as it was open, so that I could see into his bosom.
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Not only was his robe exceedingly white, but his whole person was glorious beyond description, and his countenance truly like lightning.
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The room was exceedingly light, but not so very bright as immediately around his person.
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¶ When first I looked upon him, I was afraid; but the fear soon left me.
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And it was by night, and he called me by name, and said unto me that he was a messenger sent from the presence of God to me, and that his name was Moroni;
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He said the Lord had forgiven me my sins, and that God had a work for me to do;
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And that my name should be had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds, and tongues,
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Or that it should be both good and evil spoken of among all people.
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He revealed unto me that in the Town of Manchester, Ontario County New York, there were plates of gold upon which there were engravings which were engraved by Moroni and his fathers;
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The servants of the living God in ancient days, and deposited by the commandments of God, and kept by the power thereof, and that I should go and get them.
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And he revealed unto me many things concerning the inhabitants of the earth which since have been revealed in commandments and revelations.
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He also said that the fullness of the everlasting Gospel was contained in it, as delivered by the Savior to the ancient inhabitants;
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Also that there were two stones in silver bows, and these stones, fastened to a breast-plate, constituted what is called the Urim and Thummim, deposited with the plates;
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And the possession and use of these stones were what constituted Seers in ancient or former times;
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And that God had prepared them for the purpose of translating the book.
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¶ After telling me these things, he commenced quoting the prophecies of the Old Testament.
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He first quoted part of the third chapter of Malachi, and he quoted also the fourth or last chapter of the same prophecy, though with a little variation from the way it reads in our Bibles.
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Instead of quoting the first verse as it reads in our books, he quoted it thus:
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For behold the day cometh that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly shall burn as stubble: for they that come shall burn them, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
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And again, he quoted the fifth verse thus: Behold I will reveal unto you the Priesthood, by the hand of Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.
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He also quoted the next verse differently: And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers; if it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming.
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In addition to these, he quoted the eleventh chapter of Isaiah, saying that it was about to be fulfilled.
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He quoted also the third chapter of Acts, twenty-second and twenty-third verses, precisely as they stand in our New Testament.
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He said that that Prophet was Christ; but the day had not yet come when they who would not hear his voice should be cut off from among the people, but that it soon would come.
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He also quoted the second chapter of Joel, from the twentyeighth verse to the last.
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He also said that this was not yet fulfilled but was soon to be.
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And he further stated that the fullness of the Gentiles was soon to come in.
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He quoted many other passages of Scripture and offered many explanations which cannot be mentioned here.
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¶ Again, he told me, that when I got those plates of which he had spoken, for the time that they should be obtained was not yet fulfilled, I should not show them to any person;
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Neither the breast plate with the Urim and Thummim; only to those to whom I should be commanded to show them; if I did, I should be destroyed.
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While he was conversing with me about the plates, the vision was opened to my mind that I could see the place where the plates were deposited, and that so clearly and distinctly that I knew the place again when I visited it.
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¶ After this communication, I saw the light in the room began to gather immediately around the person of him who had been speaking to me;
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And it continued to do so, until the room was again left dark, except just around me, when instantly I saw, as it were, a conduit open right up into heaven;
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And he ascended until he entirely disappeared, and the room was left as it had been before this heavenly light had made its appearance.
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I lay musing on the singularity of the scene and marveling greatly at what had been told to me by this extraordinary messenger;
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When in the midst of my meditation, I suddenly discovered that my room was again beginning to get lighted, and in an instant, as it were, the same heavenly messenger was again by my bedside.
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He commenced, and again related the very same things which he had done at the first visit, without the least variation;
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Which having done, he informed me of great judgments which were coming upon the earth, with great desolations by famine, sword, and pestilence;
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And, that these grievous judgments would come on the earth in this generation.
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Having related these things, he again ascended as he had done before.
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¶ By this time, so deep were the impressions made on my mind, that sleep had fled from my eyes, and I lay overwhelmed in astonishment at what I had both seen and heard.
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But what was my surprise when again I beheld the same messenger at my bedside, and heard him rehearse or repeat over again to me the same things as before;
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And he added a caution to me, telling me that Satan would try to tempt me, (in consequence of the indigent circumstances of my father’s family), to get the plates for the purpose of getting rich.
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This he forbade me, saying that I must have no other object in view in getting the plates but to glorify God;
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And that I must not be influenced by any other motive than that of building His kingdom; otherwise I could not get them.
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After this third visit, he again ascended into heaven as before, and I was again left to ponder on the strangeness of what I had just experienced;
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When almost immediately after the heavenly messenger had ascended from me the third time, the cock crowed, and I found that day was approaching, so that our interviews must have occupied the whole of that night.
Note
Some of the rumors of Joseph’s “outrageous violations” were due to his work using peep stones to enable his gift of prophecy to find things, and some of his accusers saw this as fraud or the work of the devil, rather than as the gift from God that it was.