The very first verse that Nephi quotes from Isaiah indicts those who have come “out of the waters of baptism” (1 Ne. 1:20:1). He says, “. . . they make mention of the God of Israel . . . they call themselves of the holy city, but they do not stay themselves upon the God of Israel . . .” (1 Ne. 1:20:1-2). The covenant people of the last days may assume they will enjoy God’s protection from apostasy because they are of “the stone which is cut out of the mountain without hands [which] shall roll forth, until it has filled the whole earth” (D&C 65:2; see also Dan. 2:25). Some may miss the detail that this is “the gospel” rolling forth, not the Church in general. Indeed, the gospel shall roll forth to fill the whole earth, but, as Isaiah often warns, this won’t be completed until after the Lord “[has] chosen thee in the furnace of affliction” (Isa. 48:10), even until the Lord “hath performed his whole work upon mount Zion and on Jerusalem” (Isa. 10:12). This will be a work of cleansing people whose sins are “as scarlet,” but who will yet be “as white as snow” (Isa. 1:18). As a consequence of this refining process, Ephraim’s “crown of pride” will be humbled to the earth and “trodden under feet” and many covenant sons and daughters who cannot sustain their faith will become further estranged from the Lord (Isa. 28:1-4).

But Isaiah doesn’t just speak of sons and daughters who have “gone away backward” (Isa. 1:4), he also speaks of “the priest and the prophet” who have erred (Isa. 28:7). He speaks of a “spirit of deep sleep” being poured out among the covenant people, and of the prophets, rulers, and seers being “covered” (Isa. 29:10). Such an apostasy among the people will not arise, of course, until the conditions set forth in Isaiah’s timeline have been fulfilled, and Isaiah makes clear that not all will fall (thus the “stone” will continue rolling), but, like Nephi, he also makes clear that a division will occur that will separate wheat from tares, faithful virgins from the unfaithful (see 2 Ne: 30:10; Isa. 6:10-13; Matt. 25:1-6. It is interesting to note that all ten virgins were actively waiting for their Lord to appear.)

Isaiah further declares that “this people draw near me with the mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men” (Isa. 29:13). The Lord repeated this passage to Joseph Smith when the young man was only 14 years old (JS—History 1:19), and some may assume that the Lord was referring only to those ministers and their followers in Joseph’s day. But Nephi indicated that such erring ways would also extend to covenant people in the last days:

They wear stiff necks and high heads; yea, and because of pride, and wickedness, and abominations, and whoredoms, they have all gone astray save it be a few, who are the humble followers of Christ; nevertheless, they are led, that in many instances they do err because they are taught by the precepts of men (2 Ne. 28:14).

Then Isaiah makes a bolder claim:

And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying Read this: I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed; And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned (Isa. 29:11-12).

This book, of course, is the Book of Mormon—a book that is sealed. But whereas we take these prophesied events as verification of the truthfulness of the book itself, Isaiah was actually using them as part of a greater indictment; specifically, he was talking about some covenant people who love the book—in fact, may love it too much, if possible. He is saying that some have elevated the book to become the sum of their vision, the totality of their beliefs. In essence, he is suggesting that the book frames all that they believe, and anything more or less than the fulness of the gospel found within the book falls outside their religion. Isaiah’s point is that too many believers in the Book of Mormon will take it as the sum of all vision and will tend to see anything new that may be preached by the Lord’s anointed leaders as false or at a minimum highly questionable. Isaiah may even be speaking of covenant members who might say “A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible” (2 Ne. 29:3). Both Nephi and Isaiah seem to be saying that this is part of a subtle latter-day apostasy that other prophets too have warned about, including, as we shall see, the Savior himself.

In chapter 1, Isaiah begins his prophecy with these words from the Lord:

Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the Lord hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard [a desolate shack], as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers [again, an empty shack], as a besieged city. Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah (Isa. 1:3-9).

When the Lord says “my children” whom he has “nourished and brought up,” he means his covenant children, those he has taught by the whisperings of his Spirit, those he has guided through the teachings of inspired leaders and by holy ordinances. And when he says “they are gone away backward,” he means that some of them, perhaps many, are not only descending into apostasy, they are rebelling against their God. Again, the conditions Isaiah foretells in his timeline have not fully ripened, but we may ask ourselves if these things have not yet begun to appear.

As we shall see through a careful, line by line examination of the words of Isaiah, evidence of a future apostasy within Israel becomes apparent—a division that, in the end, will leave only “a very small remnant” of souls faithful enough to raise up Zion in its decreed place (Isa. 6:13; Amos 5:3; D&C 101:17-20). Through this study, it becomes clear that the Lord’s covenant people must, at some point, stop pointing the finger at others and begin seriously looking at themselves. Isaiah is not only writing to gentiles in the last days, he is writing to his kindred folk, to fellow members of covenant Israel, and if we are serious about truly understanding his words, we must take his prophecies personally. We must assume, as Nephi did, that he is talking to those of the baptismal covenant, to those who have the Book of Mormon, because they are the only people who have all of these prophecies. If we do so, we will discover that a large part of the great and marvelous work in the last days will be the pruning of the Lord’s vineyard, even those of covenant Israel in the latter days (Isa. 5:7; 2:2).