The following is a revelation received by the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints organized in 1844, James Strang. We ask members of the Fellowship to read this revelation prayerfully to determine if it should be added to the Fellowship Doctrine and Covenants.
Thou shalt have no other gods before thee.
1 ¶ The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob is our God; this is His name forever, and this is His memorial unto all generations.
2 He created the heavens and the earth, and all things that are in them are the workmanship of His hands.
3 He created man in His own image, that he might have dominion over the earth, and over the beasts of the field, and over the fowls of the air, and over the fishes of the sea.
4 ¶ Man, being in the likeness of God’s person, they all recognize him as their Lord, and fear him as a God.
5 And notwithstanding his degeneracy, he has retained so much of the divine likeness, that beasts, birds, and fishes, fear him, and his power is over them as a mighty one.
6 It is diminished as he has departed from the likeness and perfections of his Creator:
7 And that spirit of rebellion, which man has received so redundantly, he has communicated to them also, that they rebel against him, as he rebels against God.
8 Yet the fear of man is on them continually; and his dominion is over them throughout the earth.
9 ¶ God conversed with Adam as a familiar friend; and walked with Enoch, who was faithful unto him in the midst of a corrupt race:
10 He communed with Noah, the father of a new world; and covenanted by His own oath, with Abraham the faithful.
11 ¶ He commanded a fiery law, with a voice of thunder, in Sinai:
12 The earth quaked at the tread of His foot: the rustling of his garment was as low thunder; and his voice as a mighty thunderbolt:
13 The beaming of his face was as the sun in the morning; and the flash of his eye as the fierce lightning.
14 The nations trembled at his presence; and the tribes said: Not unto us; not unto us, Oh Lord God, but unto Moses, be thy voice known.
15 ¶ For they heard the voice of God, as the voice of a trumpet; and as loud thunder: and they saw the lightning, and the mountain smoking; and they felt the earth tremble;
16 And they fled far away, crying, Not unto us; not unto us: but unto Moses, declare thy law, O God, and we will obey his voice, and live, for, who shall abide in thy presence?
17 ¶ His word was made known to the Prophets, and His sacraments were established in Israel.
18 Judges ruled in His glorious name; and the nations who forgot Him were destroyed.
19 ¶ He hath appointed everlasting life in the Lord Jesus; and given the keys of death and of hell unto him who alone among mortals, hath kept his glorious word in all things.
20 He hath chosen him the first born among many brethren; for he is the first begotten of the dead, and hath the keys of the resurrection, and of life forevermore.
21 ¶ He maketh his Apostles the witnesses of His Law, unto the nations; and of His gospel unto every kindred, and tongue, and people.
22 His word is among men; and the revelation of his power, in the midst of the earth.
23 ¶ The Lord our God is glorious in his perfections; there is none like him.
24 The gods of the heathen have no voice: neither do they see, nor understand.
25 The god of Babylon the Great, the Mother of Churches, before whom all her daughters bow down, is naught;
26 He is as wind, and vanity; he can neither be seen nor heard, nor felt; he hath no dwelling place:
27 Where shall any abide with him? who shall adore him, or fear him?
28 ¶ Without members and parts; He could not hear, see, feel, smell, or taste.
29 Neither could He speak, nor come unto those that worship Him, nor smite the disobedient and rebellious.
30 Handless, footless, mouthless, eyeless, and earless; a shapeless chaos, He wouldst be conceived in the imagination of the vain:
31 Gods such as these ye shall not fear, nor bow down to, nor adore.
32 ¶ The Lord our God hath an incommunicable name; never polluted by the breath of the ungodly: which none can know,
33 But he who ministereth in His holy sanctuary; by which He revealed himself unto Moses; and in which he establisheth this Law, for an everlasting covenant.
34 ¶ God alone hath immortality.
35 Adam, the first of men, the Ancient of Days, the great Prince; Abraham, to whom God gave an everlasting possession; David, whose throne was established as the days of heaven, forever; all died.
36 Enoch, who walked with God, and was not found, because God took him; and Elijah, who ascended to the throne of God, in his own fiery chariot shall return to the earth to sleep with their fathers.
37 The change which is sealed upon all the sons of Adam, shall come upon the faithful, who stand on the earth, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who know not God, and obey not the gospel.
38 And he, the Prince of the Kings of the earth; who in the days to come, shall speak with the voice of a trumpet, and the dead shall hear his voice and live; died once, that he might live forevermore.
39 He praised God, who alone hath immortality, that he would not leave him in the place of the dead:
40 He preached the gospel to the spirits in prison, and obtained the key of life everlasting:
41 But God alone liveth forever: the eternal ages are unto Him as moments to us: infinities, as units to the mathematician.
42 Our God alone hath immortality.
43 Thou shalt love Him with all thy heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.
44 ¶ God alone hath omniscience.
45 He clotheth himself in light as a robe: His ministers, who at midday, are as a flaming fire in the dark night, are blind before Him;
46 He apprehendeth the motion of the atom which floateth in the invisible element, and discerneth the speck in the center of the star, which the light of the sun hath not reached since the day that the sons of God shouted for joy that the earth was created, as a mountain in the eye of mortals.
47 He never sleepeth; his eye closeth not; and there is no darkness before him.
48 Our God alone hath omniscience.
49 Thou shalt love him with all thy heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.
50 ¶ God alone hath omnipotence.
51 He looketh upon the nations, and they melt in the fury of his countenance:
52 He frowneth, and the mountains dissolve to smoke; the vallies are consumed in the breath of his nostrils.
53 He spoke, and worlds were created: he thought, and they were lost in space.
54 Earthquakes are but the whisperings of His voice; the rustling of his attire causeth lightning, and thunder; and with the shadow of his garment he blotteth out the sun.
55 The Prince of the Kings of the earth; by whom the world was created; and who liveth and reigneth forever receiveth power from him, and rendereth it unto him.
56 Who shall stand before him? Our God alone hath omnipotence.
57 Thou shalt love him with all thy heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.
58 ¶ God alone is omnipresent.
59 His presence filleth the immensity of space as a point.
60 In the midst of the bottomless pit, is He; the pavilion of his feet, is the face of the earth:
61 The stars, are his home: His breath, is fragrant odor to the blessed, in the highest heaven; and it enliveneth the crumbling frame of the dead.
62 The rays of the sun, have not found His born; nor the light of the stars, the place he inhabiteth not.
63 His rest outspeedeth the lightning; it leaveth the morning ray behind it; and his speed is more rapid than the thought of angels.
64 Our God alone is omnipresent.
65 Thou shalt love him with all thy heart and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.
66 ¶ God alone is one.
67 There are choirs of angels; hosts of spirits; and multitudes of men: but God hath no fellow.
68 A great King, is to him as the unseen spawn before the monsters of the deep;
69 Methuselah, as the ephemera of a day: the most glorious spirit, is body-less, and a breath.
70 And the Lord Jesus, who created the earth, and redeemed it; whose kingdom filleth the earth, and the heavens; possesseth but a speck, amid the stars he made.
71 He alone is one.
72 Thou shalt love him with all thy heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.
73 Thou shalt adore him, and serve him, and obey him; and beside him, thou shalt have no other God:
74 For he alone hath immortality, and omniscience, and omnipotence, and omnipresence. He alone is one; and they who obey his law, shall be like him.
Interpretation
The Fellowship interprets this revelation to denote the Israelites views of God, in further detail, as reviled to Moses. We do not believe this to be a perfect translation as kings were not a calling from God to Israel until Saul was chosen. For this reason, the parts of the divined translation have been corrected that these writings might be used for edification and instruction for the Fellowship. Verses 28-31 were poorly translated, and we re-translated by the prophet David. See Deuteronomy 4:27-29.
If accepted, this chapter of the Book of the Law of the Lord will be added either after what is commonly known as the Lectures on Faith, or at the end of the collection of the Sections of the Doctrine and Covenants.
Thoughts, comments, and other interpretations are welcome below.