GOSPEL WIKI

Gospel Wiki Book of Mormon Sermon at the Temple

The Sermon at the Temple

The discourse the risen Christ delivers to the multitude at the temple in the land Bountiful (3 Nephi 12–14), closed by its own exposition on the fulfilled law (3 Nephi 15:1–10). Along most of its length it runs word-for-word, or nearly so, with the Sermon on the Mount of Matthew 5–7 — the corpus’s largest parallel to a New-Testament text, measured as one continuous multi-chapter block (3 Nephi 12–14 against Matthew 5–7) rather than chapter by chapter. On the text’s own account this is one speaker on two occasions: the risen Lord delivers at Bountiful a discourse he had already taught before his ascension (15:1). This page pins the places where the two texts diverge, quotes both sides wherever both texts have words at the point, and reports each difference as a textual fact; now that Matthew is a hosted corpus book, the notable spans and a set of the variants are also registered as ordinary connections — the register carries a selection, not one record per variant. What the pattern of differences means — and it reads as a pattern — is offered as a reading to weigh, not asserted.


What this page is, and the class it belongs to

The sermon at the temple is not a text the Nephite record quotes from a source it names. It is a discourse the risen Lord delivers — and the record preserves it in near-identical wording to the Sermon on the Mount that, on the text’s own account, the same speaker had already taught “before I ascended to my Father” (15:1) — the discourse Matthew 5–7 records. Under the wiki’s standing editorial position on Book-of-Mormon ↔ KJV overlap, this is the same-speaker parallel class (position paper §2b): the wiki reports the framing as the text’s own, reports the verbal correspondence and every variant as textual facts, and does not adjudicate what the correspondence implies about how the English text came to match the KJV’s English.

Three things follow for how this page works:

The baseline to keep in view: for long stretches the two texts are word-for-word identical. The pearls-before-swine verse (14:6 = Matthew 7:6), the ask-seek-knock triplet (14:7–8 ≈ Matthew 7:7–8), the two builders (14:24–27 ≈ Matthew 7:24–27), the treasures passage (13:19–21 ≈ Matthew 6:19–21), the closing doxology of the Lord’s Prayer (13:13 ≈ Matthew 6:13b) all run verbatim or within a word. Against that baseline of identity, the deviations stand out — and they are not random.


The covenant preamble (3 Nephi 12:1–2)

Standing disclosure — KJV-overlap material. This page reports verbal correspondence with the King James text as textual fact, including where the correspondence follows the KJV’s English translation. What that correspondence implies about the origin of the Book of Mormon text — in any direction — is an external question outside this wiki’s scope.

Where Matthew opens the sermon with a two-verse stage direction — “seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain … And he opened his mouth, and taught them” (Matthew 5:1–2) — the 3 Nephi sermon opens with two verses that have no counterpart in Matthew at all. They are a covenant preamble that binds the coming beatitudes to the baptismal doctrine the Lord had just finished giving in chapter 11:

[Textual] — an opening with no Matthew parallel.

  • 3 Nephi 12:1: “…unto them I have given power that they may baptize you with water; and after that ye are baptized with water, behold, I will baptize you with fire and with the Holy Ghost; therefore blessed are ye if ye shall believe in me and be baptized…”
  • 3 Nephi 12:2: “…more blessed are they who shall believe in your words … and be baptized, for they shall be visited with fire and with the Holy Ghost, and shall receive a remission of their sins.”
  • Matthew 5:1–2: “And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain … And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,”

The “fire and … the Holy Ghost” language is the same doctrine of Christ just declared at 11:35 (“he will visit him with fire and with the Holy Ghost”). The preamble is what makes the beatitudes, in this delivery, the front end of a covenant sequence — believe, be baptized with water, be visited with fire — rather than a free-standing set of blessings. (The doctrine itself is on The Doctrine of Christ; the visitation narrative is on The Visitation at Bountiful.)


The pattern of variants: an interpretation to weigh

⚖️ Interpretation — weigh this. The divergences between the temple sermon and the Matthew form are not scattered noise; they appear to fall into a small number of recurring kinds. The grouping below is a reading offered for weighing — the classification is interpretive. Each individual difference it points to is a textual fact, shown with its quotes on this page — in the tables below, or, where one text has no counterpart at all (the preamble 12:1–2, quoted in the callout above; the added verses 12:19 and 12:46–47; the epilogue 15:1–10), with the one quote that exists.

  1. Covenantal additions — clauses that attach the teaching to coming-unto-Christ and to the baptismal covenant: “who come unto me” (12:3); the come-unto-me reconciliation (12:23–24); “come unto me and be ye saved” (12:20); the broken-heart clause (12:19); and the whole preamble (12:1–2).
  2. Clauses naming the Holy Ghost — where the Holy Ghost stands in the temple form and Matthew’s wording does not name it: “shall be filled with the Holy Ghost” (12:6); the fire-and-Holy-Ghost baptism of the preamble (12:1–2).
  3. The speaker’s self-inclusion — places where the risen Christ stands within a saying that Matthew leaves impersonal: “for my name’s sake” for “for righteousness sake” (12:10; Matthew 5:10); “I give unto you to be” the salt / the light (12:13–14), for “Ye are” (Matthew 5:13–14); “perfect even as I, or your Father” for “even as your Father” (Matthew 5:48) (12:48).
  4. Law-transition differences — the largest group: where Matthew’s form states the law’s fulfilment as future, the temple form states it as accomplished, and the temple-and-sacrifice machinery of the Mosaic law is absent. The fulfilment stands as done rather than future (12:18, 12:46–47); the altar-and-gift stands as come-unto-me (12:23–24); the whole discourse is then capped by an exposition, absent from Matthew, on why “the law is fulfilled” (15:1–10).

The reading these four kinds together suggest — that the temple delivery is a post-resurrection, covenant-framed delivery of the same discourse, addressed to a people for whom the law of Moses has just ended — is the natural inference, and the epilogue at 15:1–10 states as much in the text’s own voice. But that a given change belongs to one kind rather than another, and that the kinds form a single deliberate design, is the reader’s synthesis, not a claim the text spells out phrase by phrase. Offered to weigh.

The tables below are organized by the sermon’s own sequence, not by kind. Each lists the substantive divergences inside its range (both quotes given where both texts have words); the smaller ones are named in the prose after each table. What is left over — every verse of 3 Nephi 12–14 that appears in neither place — differs from its Matthew counterpart by no more than a word or two: a leading “And” (12:5), a who for a which, a spelling, a small change of tense or word order.


The beatitudes and their frame (3 Nephi 12:3–12 ↔ Matthew 5:3–12)

Where3 Nephi (temple)Matthew (KJV)The difference
12:3 / 5:3”…blessed are the poor in spirit who come unto me, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.""Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”Added qualifier “who come unto me”.
12:6 / 5:6”…they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness … shall be filled with the Holy Ghost.""…they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.”Added “with the Holy Ghost.”
12:10 / 5:10”…blessed are all they who are persecuted for my name’s sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.""Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.""for my name’s sake” stands where Matthew reads “for righteousness sake”.

Minor, consistent across the block: 3 Nephi carries “all” where Matthew does not, at five of the beatitudes (“blessed are all they that mourn,” 12:4; “blessed are all they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness” 12:6; “blessed are all the pure in heart,” 12:8; “blessed are all the peacemakers,” 12:9; “blessed are all they who are persecuted” 12:10), and reads 12:12’s “ye shall have great joy and be exceedingly glad” for Matthew’s “Rejoice, and be exceeding glad” (Matthew 5:12).

That leaves four beatitude verses. 12:5 and 12:7 (≈ 5:5, 7) are verbatim but for a leading “And”. 12:9 adds “all” as above, and nothing else. 12:11 differs by more than the leading “And”: it reads “and persecute” where Matthew 5:11 reads “and persecute you” — the object of the persecution is dropped.


Salt, light, and the law (3 Nephi 12:13–20 ↔ Matthew 5:13–20)

Where3 Nephi (temple)Matthew (KJV)The difference
12:13 / 5:13”…I give unto you to be the salt of the earth""Ye are the salt of the earth”A statement of identity stands as a gift bestowed by the speaker. (Three further variants stand in the same verse: “if the salt shall lose its savor” for Matthew’s “if the salt have lost his savour”; “wherewith shall the earth be salted” for “wherewith shall it be salted”; and “The salt shall be thenceforth good for nothing” for “it is thenceforth good for nothing”.)
12:14 / 5:14”…I give unto you to be the light of this people.""Ye are the light of the world.”Same “I give unto you” form; “this people” for “the world.” (The verse’s second sentence tracks Matthew but for a spelling: “set on a hill” for “set on an hill”.)
12:15 / 5:15”Behold, do men light a candle and put it under a bushel? Nay, but on a candlestick, and it giveth light to all that are in the house;""Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.”Matthew’s flat statement stands as a question with its own answer: “Behold, do men light a candle” opens what “Neither do men light a candle” closes, and the temple form answers itself with “Nay” before the candlestick clause. Also “to all” for “unto all”.
12:16 / 5:16”…let your light so shine before this people""Let your light so shine before men""this people” for “men”.
12:18 / 5:18”…one jot nor one tittle hath not passed away from the law, but in me it hath all been fulfilled.""…Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.”The fulfilment stands as accomplished (“hath … in me it hath all been fulfilled”) where Matthew reads future (“shall … till all be fulfilled”); “Till heaven and earth pass” has no counterpart.
12:19 / —“…come unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit. Behold, ye have the commandments before you, and the law is fulfilled.”(no Matthew 5 parallel)An added verse: the broken-heart / contrite-spirit in place of sacrifice, with “the law is fulfilled.”
12:20 / 5:20”…come unto me and be ye saved … except ye shall keep my commandments … ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.""…except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.”Come-unto-me / keep-my-commandments stands where Matthew has the scribes-and-Pharisees comparison; the shared tail is “in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

The jot-and-tittle verse (12:18) carries a second load: its “one jot nor one tittle” is the payoff of a corpus chain reaching back to Alma 34:13, where Amulek foretold that the law would be fulfilled “every jot and tittle”. That in-corpus chain is registered on Amulek — and it is keyed to the same words of 12:18 that the table above treats: the record’s 3 Nephi quote runs the whole saying, fulfilment clause included. What distinguishes it from this page’s record is the far end, not the near one: Amulek’s page pairs 12:18 with Alma 34:13, and the record below pairs the same verse with Matthew 5:18.

The doublet has a third carrier in the record that neither page registers. Across the frozen corpus the word jot stands at exactly four verses — Alma 34:13, 3 Nephi 1:25, 12:18, and Matthew 5:18 — and the one at 3 Nephi 1:25 is verbally the closest of the three Nephite carriers to the temple form, correcting a people who had erred about the law that “one jot or tittle should not pass away till it should all be fulfilled” against 12:18’s “one jot nor one tittle hath not passed away”. 1:25 stands before the crucifixion and says the law “was not yet fulfilled”; 12:18 stands after it and says “in me it hath all been fulfilled”. Matthew 5:19 (the “least commandments” saying) has no 3 Nephi parallel.

⚖️ Interpretation — weigh this. At 12:14 the disciples are made “the light of this people”, where Matthew has “the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14). The risen Lord claims a longer form of that title for himself: “I am the light and the life of the world” — spoken at the descent, earlier in the same visitation (3 Nephi 11:11), and before it, in the voice heard out of the darkness (9:18). Nowhere in the Nephite record does the short form stand in his own mouth; its one appearance there is Alma’s, in the third person and with the pair reversed — “he is the life and the light of the world” (Alma 38:9). The wider frozen corpus does put the short form in his mouth, twice: “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12; also 9:5). The reading offered for weighing is that the temple form reserves “the light … of the world” for Christ and gives his disciples the smaller, local commission — “the light of this people” — a distinction Matthew’s wording does not draw. The two facts (12:14’s “this people”; 11:11’s self-title) are textual; that the one is a deliberate deference to the other is the inference. Weigh it.


The antitheses (3 Nephi 12:21–48 ↔ Matthew 5:21–48)

This is the antitheses run: a saying of the law quoted — once as “Ye have heard that it hath been said” (12:21), elsewhere as “it is written” (12:27, 12:33, 12:38, 12:43) — and then answered by the speaker in the first person. Two of the four law-transition differences named above fall inside it: the altar-and-gift of Matthew 5:23–24 stands as come-unto-me (12:23–24), and the run closes by declaring the law fulfilled (12:46–47). (No ranking is claimed for the density of law-transition differences here against the salt-and-law block or the epilogue; the four kinds are not evenly spread, and the page names no measure that would settle which stretch carries them most thickly.)

Where3 Nephi (temple)Matthew (KJV)The difference
12:22 / 5:22”…whosoever is angry with his brother shall be in danger of his judgment.""…whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment""without a cause” has no counterpart — the temple form admits no exception. (The temple form also reads “his judgment” for Matthew’s “the judgment”.)
12:23–24 / 5:23–24”…if ye shall come unto me, or shall desire to come unto me, and rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee— … first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come unto me with full purpose of heart, and I will receive you.""…if thou bring thy gift to the altar … first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.”The altar-and-gift (temple sacrifice) stands throughout as come-unto-me.
12:25 / 5:25”Agree with thine adversary quickly while thou art in the way with him, lest at any time he shall get thee, and thou shalt be cast into prison.""Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison.”The whole judge-and-officer chain has no counterpart. Matthew’s fifteen-word judicial sequence — “the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer” — stands as the four words “he shall get thee”, eleven words shorter. Also “while” for “whiles”, and “thou shalt be cast” for “thou be cast”.
12:26 / 5:26”…thou shalt by no means come out thence until thou hast paid the uttermost senine.""…Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.”Currency localized to the Nephite senine (cf. Alma 11); a follow-up sentence about paying “one senine” is added.
12:29–30 / 5:29–30”…suffer none of these things to enter into your heart; … deny yourselves of these things, wherein ye will take up your cross, than that ye should be cast into hell.""…if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee …” (the parallel right-hand figure follows at Matthew 5:30)The eye-plucking / hand-cutting figures stand as deny-yourselves / take-up-your-cross.
12:35 / 5:35”Nor by the earth, for it is his footstool;""Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King.The “neither by Jerusalem” clause has no counterpart.
12:45 / 5:45”…he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good.""…he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.The rain-on-the-just clause has no counterpart; the two publican verses that follow in Matthew (5:46–47) have no 3 Nephi parallel.
12:46–47 / —“…those things which were of old time, which were under the law, in me are all fulfilled. Old things are done away, and all things have become new.”(no Matthew 5 parallel)Two added verses declaring the law fulfilled — where Matthew has the publican sayings.
12:48 / 5:48”…be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect.""Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”The speaker stands within the pattern of perfection — “even as I, or” — where Matthew reads “even as your Father”. Both texts read “in heaven”.

The remaining antitheses run close to Matthew — the adultery and divorce sayings (12:27–28, 31–32 ≈ 5:27–28, 31–32) and the oath, turn-the-cheek and love-your-enemies material (12:33–34, 36–44 ≈ 5:33–34, 36–44) — but not identically. The differences fall into three groups.

How the old saying is introduced. Where Matthew opens with “Ye have heard that it was said” or “it hath been said”, the temple form reads “it is written” at four verses (12:27, 12:33, 12:38, 12:43) and “It hath been written” at a fifth (12:31). The recasting is not uniform. At 12:27 the “by them of old time” phrase is kept but more than said changes: “Behold, it is written by them of old time” stands where Matthew 5:27 reads “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time” — the whole Ye-have-heard opening dropped, “Behold” added. The one verse where the change really is the single word saidwritten is 12:31, whose “It hath been written” answers Matthew 5:31’s “It hath been said”. 12:21 keeps the Matthew shape and adds to it: it retains “it hath been said by them of old time” and appends “and it is also written before you”. On the Matthew side, 5:31, 5:38, and 5:43 carry no “them of old time” to begin with.

How the speaker answers. Matthew answers every one of the six antitheses with a bare “But I say unto you” (Matthew 5:22, 28, 32, 34, 39, 44). The temple form amplifies that formula three times: “Verily, verily, I say unto you” at 12:32, “But verily, verily, I say unto you” at 12:34, and “But behold I say unto you” at 12:44.

Small changes inside the sayings. 12:37 swaps subject and predicate (“for whatsoever cometh of more than these is evil” against Matthew 5:37’s “for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil”); 12:36’s “black or white” reverses Matthew 5:36’s “white or black”; 12:28 drops the “with her” of Matthew 5:28’s “hath committed adultery with her already in his heart”; and 12:39 reads “ye shall not resist evil” for Matthew 5:39’s “ye resist not evil”.


Alms, prayer, and fasting (3 Nephi 13:1–18 ↔ Matthew 6:1–18)

This block tracks Matthew 6 very closely. Its largest divergence is in the Lord’s Prayer, where two of Matthew’s petitions have no counterpart at all; three smaller ones stand outside the prayer, at 13:1, 13:2 and 13:5, and are set out in the prose below the table.

Where3 Nephi (temple)Matthew (KJV)The difference
13:10 / 6:10”Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.""Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.”The “Thy kingdom come” petition has no counterpart.
13:11 / 6:11–12”And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.""Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”The “daily bread” petition (Matthew 6:11) has no counterpart — the temple prayer moves straight from 13:10’s “as it is in heaven” to 13:11’s “And forgive us our debts”.

So the temple form of the prayer omits two of Matthew’s petitions, not one. The opening and the closing doxology are otherwise intact, though each carries a word of its own: 13:9 reads “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name” where Matthew 6:9 reads “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name”, and 13:13 reads “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen” where Matthew 6:13 reads “for ever”.

The alms, prayer-in-secret, and fasting instructions around the prayer (13:1–8, 14–18) run verbatim or within a word of Matthew 6:1–8, 14–18, with three exceptions. 13:1 opens with a whole sentence absent from Matthew 6:1: “Verily, verily, I say that I would that ye should do alms unto the poor”. 13:2 shifts the alms-saying to the plural — “when ye shall do your alms” against Matthew 6:2’s “when thou doest thine alms” — and reads “as will hypocrites do” for “as the hypocrites do”. And 13:5 reads “thou shalt not do as the hypocrites” where Matthew 6:5 reads “thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are”.


Treasures, sight, mammon, and “take no thought” (3 Nephi 13:19–34 ↔ Matthew 6:19–34)

The treasures passage (13:19–21) tracks Matthew 6:19–21 almost word for word (“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt … For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also”). Its in-corpus connection is registered on Riches & Pride, against Helaman 8:25 — the verse that carries the image in words: “laying up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where nothing doth corrupt”. Helaman 5:8 holds the same image in different words (“to lay up for yourselves a treasure in heaven, yea, which is eternal, and which fadeth not away”) and is a prose parallel, not the registered endpoint. The Matthew-side pairing is registered separately below.

The single-eye and two-masters sayings (13:22–24 ≈ 6:22–24) are verbatim but for one letter of one word: 13:24 closes “Ye cannot serve God and Mammon” where Matthew 6:24 reads “Ye cannot serve God and mammon”. The material break in this block is a change of audience:

Where3 Nephi (temple)Matthew (KJV)The difference
13:25 / 6:25”…he looked upon the twelve whom he had chosen, and said unto them: Remember the words which I have spoken … Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life""Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life”An inserted narrative aside addresses “take no thought” to the twelve, not the multitude.
13:32 / 6:32”For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.""(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth…”The “Gentiles seek” clause has no counterpart.

The rest of the “take no thought” material — the fowls, the lilies, Solomon, seek-ye-first-the-kingdom (13:26–31, 33–34) — is verbatim with Matthew 6:26–31, 33–34, but for 13:34’s word-order inversion (“Sufficient is the day unto the evil thereof” against 6:34’s “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof”) and for 13:30’s “if ye are not of little faith” against Matthew’s “O ye of little faith” — 13:30 also reads “even so will he clothe you” for Matthew 6:30’s “shall he not much more clothe you”.

⚖️ Interpretation — weigh this. In Matthew the counsel — “Take no thought for your life” (Matthew 6:25) — flows to the whole crowd. Here the sermon stops: at 13:25 the Lord “looked upon the twelve whom he had chosen,” and it is to them — “ye are they whom I have chosen to minister unto this people” — that “take no thought” is spoken; then at 14:1 he “turned again to the multitude”. The bracket is a textual fact. The reading offered for weighing is that the temple sermon thereby aims the do-not-provide counsel specifically at the twelve it has just named as ministers, rather than laying it on every hearer — a distinction Matthew’s undivided address does not make. Weigh it.


Judge not, ask, the gate, the fruits, the house (3 Nephi 14:1–27 ↔ Matthew 7:1–27)

Chapter 14 is the closest of the three to its Matthew counterpart — most of it is verbatim. The one narrative addition is at the head, and it is the other half of the audience-bracket noted above:

[Textual] — an added narrative frame.

  • 3 Nephi 14:1: “…when Jesus had spoken these words he turned again to the multitude, and did open his mouth unto them again, saying: Verily, verily, I say unto you, Judge not, that ye be not judged.”
  • Matthew 7:1: “Judge not, that ye be not judged.”

The “turned again to the multitude” (14:1) closes the aside-to-the-twelve opened at 13:25. The shared saying, “Judge not, that ye be not judged”, is word-for-word.

Two of this chapter’s sayings sit near in-corpus chains registered elsewhere, but they sit differently — one is a registered near end, the other is not:

Everything between — judge-not and the mote and the beam (14:2–5), pearls before swine (14:6), ask-seek-knock and the good gifts (14:7–11), the golden rule (14:12), the strait gate (14:13–14), false prophets and their fruits (14:15–18, 20), the “Lord, Lord” warning (14:21–23) — runs verbatim or within a word of Matthew 7:2–23. One structural fact closes the chapter: Matthew’s ending, the crowd “astonished at his doctrine … he taught them as one having authority” (Matthew 7:28–29), has no parallel in 3 Nephi 14. In its place the discourse continues straight into the exposition of chapter 15.


The epilogue with no Matthew: the law fulfilled (3 Nephi 15:1–10)

Where Matthew ends the sermon with the crowd’s astonishment, the temple sermon ends with the speaker turning to explain the very differences the reader has just seen. This closing exposition is the discourse’s own key to its variants, which is why it belongs on this page. It has no Matthew counterpart.

The record does not say the multitude as a whole was puzzled. It says Jesus “perceived that there were some among them who marveled, and wondered what he would concerning the law of Moses; for they understood not the saying that old things had passed away” (15:2) — the saying being 12:47’s “Old things are done away, and all things have become new.” The answer is direct:

[Textual] — the law declared fulfilled, in the text’s own voice.

  • 3 Nephi 15:4: “Behold, I say unto you that the law is fulfilled that was given unto Moses.”
  • 3 Nephi 15:5: “Behold, I am he that gave the law, and I am he who covenanted with my people Israel; therefore, the law in me is fulfilled, for I have come to fulfil the law; therefore it hath an end.”
  • 3 Nephi 15:8: “…the covenant which I have made with my people is not all fulfilled; but the law which was given unto Moses hath an end in me.”

The exposition draws the line the variants had been drawing implicitly: the law of Moses has ended (“hath an end in me”, 15:8), while the covenant and the unfulfilled prophets remain (“as many as have not been fulfilled in me … shall all be fulfilled”, 15:6). It closes on the look-and-live formula: “I am the law, and the light. Look unto me, and endure to the end, and ye shall live” (15:9) — the brazen-serpent type stated in the first person, registered on Messiah. The “other sheep … one fold, and one shepherd” discourse that follows (15:17–24) belongs to the gathering material on The Covenant, Scattering, and Gathering of Israel.

⚖️ Interpretation — weigh this. The discourse appears to be framed, head to foot, as a single fulfilment declaration. It opens with “I am not come to destroy but to fulfil” (12:17) and closes with “I have come to fulfil the law; therefore it hath an end” (15:5) — the same come-to-fulfil claim as a bracket, with the tense standing as accomplishment rather than Matthew’s future in between (12:18, 12:46, 15:4). The verses are textual facts; reading them as a deliberate inclusio that governs the whole sermon — and explains why the altar, the temple-gift, and the future-tense fulfilment are all absent — is a structural inference, offered to weigh, not a claim the text labels as its design. (No register record is entered for this bracket: the overlap between the two verses is a shared idea and a shared “come … to fulfil”, not the kind of distinctive verbatim string the register grounds textual connections on.)


The in-corpus chains that pass through this sermon

These are registered on the pages named against their in-corpus endpoints; this page cross-links them and does not re-register those in-corpus pairs. (The Matthew-side pairings for the sayings below are the distinct records proposed on this page.)

Saying in the sermonIn-corpus endRegistered on
Treasures in heaven (the passage runs 13:19–21; the registered endpoint is 13:20)Helaman 8:25 (prose parallel: Helaman 5:8)Riches & Pride
Hewn-down tree (14:19)Alma 5:52Alma the Younger
Buildeth upon my rock (11:39; the two builders at 14:24–27 are cross-linked, not endpoints of this record)Helaman 5:12 (itself registered against Jacob 4:16)Jacob
The storm that beats the house (14:27, at the record’s far end)3 Nephi 18:13The Sacrament
Jot and tittle (12:18)Alma 34:13Amulek
Broken heart, contrite spirit (12:19)3 Nephi 9:20 ↔ 2 Nephi 2:7 (12:19 itself is cross-linked, not a registered endpoint)Atonement
”…I am the law, and the light. Look unto me” (15:9)Alma 33:19 — the look-and-live serpent chainMessiah
Other sheep, one fold (the discourse runs 15:17–24; the registered endpoint is 15:21)1 Nephi 22:25The Covenant of Israel

Key references / appearances

ReferenceWhat it contains
3 Nephi 12The covenant preamble, the beatitudes, salt and light, the law-and-prophets saying, and the antitheses
3 Nephi 13Alms, prayer (with the Lord’s Prayer’s two missing petitions), fasting, treasures, “take no thought” redirected to the twelve
3 Nephi 14Judge not, ask-seek-knock, the strait gate, false prophets, the two builders
3 Nephi 15:1–10The exposition with no Matthew parallel: why “the law is fulfilled … hath an end in me”
3 Nephi 11The doctrine of Christ and baptism the preamble (12:1–2) attaches the sermon to; Christ’s “light … of the world” self-title (11:11)
Matthew 5The Sermon on the Mount that 3 Nephi 12 parallels (hosted corpus)
Matthew 6The Sermon on the Mount that 3 Nephi 13 parallels (hosted corpus)
Matthew 7The Sermon on the Mount that 3 Nephi 14 parallels (hosted corpus)


Sources

The Book of Mormon (3 Nephi 11–15); Matthew 5–7 (King James Version, public domain), now part of the wiki’s hosted corpus and a legal connection endpoint. The verbal correspondence between the two is reported as textual fact under the wiki’s standing editorial position on Book-of-Mormon ↔ KJV overlap; the origin of that correspondence — in any direction — is outside this wiki’s scope.


Every quotation on this page is taken verbatim, capitalization included, from the text it cites — 3 Nephi 11 through 15, or the frozen corpus text of Matthew 5, 6, or 7, or the other frozen chapters named at the point of use. Where a quotation opens or closes mid-verse, the omission is marked ”…”. On the text’s own account (3 Nephi 15:1) this is one speaker delivering, after his resurrection, a discourse he had already given before his ascension — the position paper’s same-speaker class (§2b); the corpus nowhere names Matthew as its source here, so the records below are entered on the wiki’s own account. The notable verbatim spans and a selection of the substantive variants are registered as textual connections (3 Nephi near end, Matthew far end) — the register does not carry a record for every variant this page reports, and the added verses, which have no Matthew end to pair with, carry none at all. A variant is reported as a textual fact, never scored, and the classification of the variants is marked interpretive. The in-corpus chains passing through the sermon (treasures, hewn-down tree, house on the rock, jot-and-tittle, broken heart, look-and-live, other sheep) are registered on the pages named above against their in-corpus endpoints and are not duplicated here — this page’s records are the distinct Matthew-side pairings.