King Benjamin’s Temple Sermon—Part 2

President Thomas S. Monson announced the Lisbon Portugal Temple on October 2, 2010. On June 24, 2012, then Elder Russell M. Nelson set me apart to preside over the Lisbon Portugal Mission, which at that time encompassed the entire country of Portugal.

Scene from the Book of Mormon Videos Intellectual Reserve, Inc. 2021.

In my journal entry describing this sacred occasion, I noted that Elder Nelson reminded us that “there would be a temple during our tenure and that this would be a great blessing to the work.” His observation, I recorded, “was a confirmation that the vision I had felt, to focus on the temple and the ‘real growth’ necessitated and enabled by having a House of the Lord nearby, was inspired of the Lord.” In his setting-apart, among other things, Elder Nelson “blessed me with a great love for and the ability to develop a close relationship and work effectively with the local leaders.” Both impressions—that there would be real growth in the Church in Portugal and that I would come to love the local leaders—were realized.

On September 15, 2019, Elder Neil L. Anderson of the Quorum of the Twelve dedicated the Lisbon Portugal Temple. Ten years after our release as mission leaders, Dorothy and I, together with one of the senior missionary couples who served with us, returned for a 10-day visit to Portugal. We attended the temple, visited with temple leaders and staff and ordinances workers. We attended church and met with many of the missionaries living in Portugal who served with us. Happily, we were able to meet many of the local leaders we had worked with, still strong in the faith and still serving the Lord and building His kingdom in Portugal.

Throughout this experience I marveled at the power the temple had—even before it was constructed and dedicated—and was having on the members, even on the people and land of Portugal. These blessings, enumerated in great detail in D&C 109,[1] are discernable in our lives and in the lives of others. They are, in Alma's words, "real" (Alma 32:35).

What did Joseph Smith learn about the power of temples and temple ordinances as he translated the Book of Mormon? Simply stated, a lot. Continuing from my last blog with our list of the parallels Brother Nibley draws in the Church's 1957 Melchizedek Priesthood Manual between the rituals observed by King Benjamin and his people with thos traditionally observed in ancient Israelite and Near Eastern religious "year-rite" or coronation ceremonies helps us better appreciate the rituals we observe in our own temple worship:

Temple rituals observed in connection with King Benjamin’s sermon (con’t).

16.  The record reflects that King Benjamin was “plainly aware of the conventional claims of kingship.” But he firmly renounces them, testifying that he had spent his days in the service of the people, not seeking “gold or silver nor any manner of riches” from them. Nibley explains that it was the custom “throughout the pagan world” for “the king at the Greate Assembly [to require] all who come into his presence to bring him rich gifts as a sign of submission, a tradition that Benjamin firmly rejects: “Neither have I suffered that ye should be confined in dungeons, nor that ye should make slaves one of another . . . And even I, myself, have labored with mine own hands that I might serve you, and that ye  should not be laden with taxes . . .” (Mosiah 2:13-14).

17.  “Of all these things” the King declares, “ye yourselves are witnesses this day” (Mosiah 2:14). “This day,” Nibley explains, “is the formally appointed time for settling all accounts between the king and the people, as it is for making and concluding all business contracts . . . in the presence of the king.” In the Near East, the time of the Great Assembly was “everywhere the proper time to enter and seal contracts.”[2] 

18-19.   In verses 18-19, King Benjamin explains that “they are there not to acclaim ‘the divine king,’ but rather ‘your heavenly King. . . . that God who has . . . created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, . . . and even supporting you from one moment to another’” (Mosiah 2:19-21). We will touch on the creation theme momentarily. But here, Nibley affirms, Benjamin is echoing an element in these ritual celebrations where the king scatters “gifts to the people,” simulating the sowing of the race itself on the day of creation” in recognition of the “power of the giver.”

20. Next comes the “king’s farewell,” in which Benjamin declares that he is “about to go down to my grave,” echoing “one of the best-known aspects of the year-drama”—“the ritual descent of the king to the underworld”—

21.  And then his resurrection: “That I might go down in peace, and my immortal spirit may join the choirs above” (Mosiah 2:28). “The heavenly choir,” Nibley adds, “is a conspicuous feature of the year-rite.”[3]

22.  King Benjamin then turns to the “main business of the meeting: the succession to the throne.” “The Lord God . . . hath commanded me that I should declare unto you this day, that my son Mosiah is a king and a ruler over you” (Mosiah 2:30).

23-24.    King Benjamin affirms that if the people “shall keep” King Mosiah’s commandments, “or the commandments of God which shall be delivered unto you by him, ye shall prosper in the land, and your enemies shall have no power over you” (Mosiah 2:31). Again, King Benjamin shifts from the “conventional formula”—that “prosperity and victory [“the two blessings that every ancient king must provide if he would keep his office”] shall attend them, as it always did when they kept the commandments of the king.” Instead, he reminds them that these blessings come as they keep God’s commandments.

25. True to the ancient form, King Benjamin reminds his people of “the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God,” who, “if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell  with God in a state of never-ending happiness (Mosiah 2:41). Such restatements of the Law of Obedience (to be discussed further below) “are always part of the year-rite,” Nibley declares.[4]

26-27. King Benjamin then “proceeds to look into the future,” divination being “an essential and unfailing part of the year-rite and royal succession everywhere.” Consistent with his entire address, however, King Benjamin focuses on the mission of Jesus Christ, the central focus of our temple worship,[5] that they might be “found blameless before God” at the final judgment, “exactly as the king sat in judgment at the New Year.”[6]

28-29. The message of Christ’s redemption through the shedding of his blood (Mosiah 3:11) was “reminiscent of the blood of the covenant sprinkled on the people by Moses at the first Sukkot (Exodus 24:8).”[7] The people expressed their desire that “the atoning blood of Christ” would be applied in their behalf, “that [they might] receive forgiveness of [their] sins, and [their] hearts [might] be purified” (Mosiah 4:1-2),” “as all Israelites were expected to do for the Day of Atonement in the seventh month.”[8] Then the Israelite high priest applied sacrificial blood to the mercy seat to atone for the sins of the people. Here, the people are verbally petitioning for that same ritual purification to be applied to them directly, making them clean and worthy to enter a new covenant relationship with God.

 Then, as “king Benjamin had made an end of speaking the words which had been delivered unto him by the angel of the Lord,” “he cast his eyes round about on the multitude, and behold they had fallen to the earth” (Mosiah 4:1). This ritual act, proskynesis, Nibley explains, or “falling to the earth (literally, ‘kissing the ground’) in the presence of the king,” “was an unfailing part of the Old World New Year’s rites as of any royal audience,” “by which all the human race on the day of coronation demonstrated its submission to divine authority.” But again, Benjamin reminds them, their obeisance is to God, whose “goodness,” and “wisdom, and his patience, and his long-suffering towards the children of men; and also, the atonement which has been prepared from the foundation of the world” make possible the “salvation” that we all seek (Mosiah 4:6).[9]

30. At the conclusion of his ritual instruction, in response to the king’s inquiry as to whether “they believed” and would follow the “words which he had spoken unto them,” the people “all cried with one voice, saying: Yea, we believe all the words which thou hast spoken unto us; and also, we know of their surety and truth, because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually” (Mosiah 5:2). Again, this acclamatio (Latin, “shout of approval”) was a prescribed ritual expression, a liturgical appeal, offered at this precise moment of the ceremony.[10]

31-32. The covenant the people made (Mosiah 5:5-6) and the new name given them whereby the people become “begotten” “sons and daughters or Christ” (verse 7) are discussed further below. Nibley notes in this regard, however, that “the year-rite everywhere is the ritual begetting of the human race by a divine parent.”

33-34. More also will be said about the Lord “sealing” the people “his” (Mosiah 5:15) and registering the names of everyone who made a covenant with God (Mosiah 6:2). But, to conclude Nibley’s recounting of how each element of King Benjamin’s sermon aligns with ancient Israelite and Near Eastern ritual festivals, he comments: “Some form of registering in the ‘Book of Life’ is typically found at every yearly assembly.”[11]

35-36. Finally, after consecrating his son Mosiah2 “to be a ruler and a king” and appointing priests “to stir them up in remembrance of the oath which they had made, he dismissed the multitude and they returned, every one, according to their families, to their own houses” (Mosiah 6:3).

Nibley presents these 36 points of correspondence (above and in my previous blog) between the events and statements recorded in Mosiah 2-6 and known descriptions of analogous ancient “year-rite” or “coronation” festivals as evidence that “is so good, and can be so thoroughly tested” that they constitute “the most convincing evidence yet” concerning “the authenticity of the Book of Mormon.” I present them for a different purpose, however. For me, they demonstrate that in their temple rites, the Nephites may have had more than the “mere” “preparatory gospel” that many associate with the law of Moses (D&C 85:26).

Themes from King Benjamin’s sermon found in temple instruction today. To better appreciate that more may have been at work in King Benjamin’s sermon than first meets the eye, in the years since the Church’s publication of Nibley’s ground-breaking research, scholars have begun to look at King Benjamin’s sermon through the lens of the fully restored, or Nauvoo-era, temple endowment Joseph Smith administered near the end of his life. For example, M. Catherine Thomas, in her article “Benjamin and the Mysteries of God,” noted that in the process of undergoing the “mighty change [in their] hearts”, which led King Benjamin’s people to “have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually (Mosiah 5:2; see also Alma 5:12), “Benjamin’s people may have received something of a temple endowment. In fact, we find in Benjamin’s discourse essential temple themes pertaining to the creation, fall, atonement, consecration, and covenant making.” Moreover, “Benjamin’s last words” include a reference to “being ‘sealed’ to Christ and receiving eternal life (see Mosiah 5:15).” She adds:

Of course, important endowment elements are missing from the record, but had they been administered on this occasion, or at some later point, they would not, because of their sacred nature, have been included in our present Book of Mormon account. Nevertheless, King Benjamin’s people received an endowment of spiritual knowledge and power which took them from being good people to Christlike people—all in a temple setting. What they experienced through the power of the [Melchizedek] priesthood [King Benjamin held] was a revelation of Christ’s nature and the power to be assimilated to his image.[12].

In his article, “King Benjamin’s Sermon as a Type of Temple Endowment,” Andrew I. Miller expands on Sister Thomas’s observation that these Book of Mormon chapters are filled with themes that temple-going Latter-day Saints will recognize from their temple experiences. Table 1from Miller’s article, copied below, for example, compares phrases from King Benjamin’s sermon with corresponding or analogous phrases from the Book of Genesis, another well-recognized temple text. If we aggregate some of the phrases Miller identified, along with many other phrases highlighted below from my own reading of his sermon (which are italicized below), around themes the Church has used to describe the today’s LDS endowment ceremony,[13] a familiar pattern of instruction emerges —

• Theme that God, the Eternal Father, is the author of the Plan of Salvation, phrases such as “ye are eternally indebted to your heavenly Father” (Mosiah 2:34); “I say unto you, if ye have come to a knowledge of the goodness of God [the Father], and his matchless power, and his wisdom, and his patience, and his long-suffering towards the children of men; and also, the atonement which [He has] prepared from the foundation of the world, that thereby salvation might come to him that should put his trust in the Lord [God, the Son or Jehovah], and should be diligent in keeping his commandments, and continue in the faith even unto the end of his life, . . . this is the man who receiveth salvation, through the atonement which was prepared from the foundation of the world for all mankind” (Mosiah 4:6).[14]

• Theme that we, with Christ, preexisted in heaven as spirit creations, or children, of God, such phrases as God “has created you from the beginning” (Mosiah 2:21); “my immortal spirit may join the choirs above” (Mosiah 2:28); “the demands of divine justice do awaken his immortal soul to a lively sense of his own guilt” (Mosiah 2:38); “For behold, the time cometh, and is not far  distant, that with power, the Lord Omnipotent who reigneth, who was, and is from all eternity to all eternity, shall come down from heaven among the children of men, and shall dwell in a tabernacle of clay” (Mosiah 3:5).

• Theme that Lucifer, the “evil spirit” or the devil, rebelled against God, such phrases as “the evil spirit, which was spoken of by my father Mosiah” (Mosiah 2:21); “the evil spirit” (Mosiah 2:37); “serve the devil, who is the master of sin, or who is the evil spirit which hath been spoken of by our fathers, he being an enemy to all righteousness” (Mosiah 4:14).[15]

  
  

• Theme that God gave man his agency, such as God “has created you from the beginning . . . that ye may live and move and do according to your own will” (Mosiah 2:21); “ye list to obey the evil spirit, which was spoken of by my father Mosiah. For behold, there is a wo pronounced upon him who listeth to obey that spirit; for if he listeth to obey him, and remaineth and dieth in his sins, the same drinketh damnation to his own soul; for he receiveth for his wages an everlasting punishment, having transgressed the law of God contrary to his own knowledge” (Mosiah 2:32-33).

• Theme that God, the Father, directed Jehovah, the premortal Christ, in the creation of the world, such phrases as “that God who has created you . . . and has granted that you should live” (Mosiah 2:20); God “has created you . . . and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath” (Mosiah 2:21); “he hath created you” (Mosiah 2:23); “Ye cannot say that ye are even as much as the dust of the earth; yet ye were created of the dust of the earth; but behold, it belongeth to him who created you” (Mosiah 2:25); “And he shall be called Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Father of heaven and earth, the Creator of all things from the beginning” (Mosiah 3:8); “Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who created heaven and earth, and all things” (Mosiah 4:2); “God, who has created you” (Mosiah 4:21).

• Theme of faith in Jesus Christ, upon which the Law of Obedience, or keeping God’s commandments, is predicated,[16] such as “he cometh unto his own, that salvation might come unto the children of men even through faith on his name” (Mosiah 3:9); “But wo, wo unto him who knoweth that he rebelleth against God! For salvation cometh to none such except it be through repentance and faith on the Lord Jesus Christ”(Mosiah 3:12); “whosoever should believe that Christ should come, the same might receive remission of their sins, and rejoice” (Mosiah 3:13);

  
  

  “And behold, all that he requires of you is to keep his commandments; and he has promised you that if ye would keep his commandments ye should prosper in the land; and he never doth vary from that which he hath said; therefore, if ye do keep his commandments he doth bless you and prosper you” (Mosiah 2:22); “ye should do as he hath commanded you” (Mosiah 2:24);“As ye have kept my commandments, and also the commandments of my father, and have prospered, and have been kept from falling into the hands of your enemies, even so if ye shall keep the commandments of my son, or the commandments of God which shall be delivered unto you by him, ye shall prosper in the land” (Mosiah 2:31); “consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual” (Mosiah 2:41).

Next week we will explore additional themes from King Benjamin’s sermon that will be equally familiar to temple-going Latter-day Saints. Suffice it to say, that as Joseph and Oliver continued their translations efforts, hour after hour and day after day, they were receiving (even if unwittingly) a master class in what the Lord meant when He would later reveal the primary purpose of the temple: to be “endowed with power from on high” (D&C 38:32, 38; 105:15).

[1] See Russell M. Nelson, “Rejoice in the Gift of Priesthood Keys,” Liahona, May 2024 (“Joseph Smith’s dedicatory prayer of the Kirtland Temple is a tutorial about how the temple spiritually empowers you and me to meet the challenges of life in these last days. I encourage you to study that prayer, recorded in Doctrine and Covenants section 109.” He then enumerates multiple, specific blessings the Lord promises regular temple worshippers will receive.) See also Fluckiger, “Epilogue,” 293-95 (listing more than 15 specific “spiritual treasures” promised in Section 109). [2] Nibley, Approaching the Book of Mormon, 301. [3] Ibid. 302-303. [4] Ibid. 303. [5] See generally Fluckiger, chapter 4, “The Spiritual Treasure of Increased Faith to Follow Jesus Christ,” particularly the section “How Is Jesus Christ at the Center of My Temple Experience?” [6] Nibley, Approaching the Book of Mormon, 304. [7] Tvedtnes, “King Benjamin and the Feast of Tabernacles.” [8] Ibid. [9] Nibley, Approaching the Book of Mormon, 304. [10] Ibid. 305 & n.24. See also Nibley, “Assemby and Atonement,” in King Benjamin’s Speech: “That Ye May Learn Wisdom,” 105-106 (“Throughout the world such acclamations were led by a special cheerleader, sometimes called a stasiarch, who stood before the crowd and received notes” on what was to be recited.” “He would recite a sentence to the people and wave a flag to lead them in a uniform chant (compare Deuteronomy 27:14-26).”) [11] Nibley, Approaching the Book of Mormon, 306. [12] M. Catherine Thomas, “Benjamin and the Mysteries of God,” in King Benjamin’s Speech Made Simple, 212. [13] See Fluckiger, chapter 12, “The Spiritual Treasures in the Endowment Instruction—Coming to Know Who God is and Who We are in Relation to Him” (as “Elder James E. Talmage and others have explained, the endowment gives us an overview of the ‘whole plan of salvation,’ including the Grand Council in Heaven, during which Heavenly Father presented His plan for the redemption and exaltation of His children and the creation of the earth pursuant to that plan and foreordained the Savior to work out the infinite Atonement. . . . Elder Talmage notes [also that] we learn about Adam and Eve’s role in and the importance and purposes of the Fall and the role and importance of apostles and prophets in teaching and administering the doctrines, covenants, and ordinances that make access to Christ’s enabling power possible, including the consequences of apostasy when they are rejected.”). [14] King Benjamin’s reference to “heavenly Father” in Mosiah 2:34 and to “Jesus Christ, the Son of God” in Mosiah 3:8 and 4:2 indicate to me that King Benjamin clearly understood the nature of the Godhood as consisting of separate beings, God the Father and God the Son, or, as King Benjamin refers to Him in Mosiah 3:21 and 5:15, “the Lord God omnipotent” and “Christ, the Lord God omnipotent”, respectively. Thus, the approximately 44 references to God in Mosiah 2-6 could be understood as references to God the Father, including such references as “commandments of God” (Mosiah 2:4, 41; 4:30; 6:3) and “love towards God” (Mosiah 2:4); “mysteries of God” (Mosiah 2:9); “just God” (Mosiah 2:28); “law(s) of God” (Mosiah 2:33; 4:14); “enemy to God” (Mosiah 2:38; 3:19); “angel from God” (Mosiah 3:2); “will of God” (Mosiah 3:11); “blameless before God” (Mosiah 3:21); “wrath of God” (Mosiah 3:26; 5:5); “goodness of God” (Mosiah 4:5; 5:3); “Believe in God” (Mosiah 4:9); “glory of God” and “greatness of God” (Mosiah 4:11); “love of God” (Mosiah 4:12); “kingdom of God” (Mosiah 4:18); “God, who has created you” (Mosiah 4:21); “guiltless before God” (Mosiah 4:26); “covenant with our God” (Mosiah 5:5,8; 6;1); “right [and left] hand of God” (Mosiah 5:9, 10, 12). The six references to the ”Lord God,” depending on the context, could refer to the Father and/or the Son. See Robert L. Millet, “The Plates of Brass: A Witness of Christ,” Ensign, January 1988 (the prophets Zenos and Zenock, whose writings were contained in the brass plates and whose teachings are quoted extensively in the Book of Mormon, “presented a view of the Godhead that is consistent with the knowledge revealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith, establishing the distinct personalities of the Father and the Son and their separate functions. This knowledge, restored through the Book of Mormon, reaffirms that the ancients had a correct idea of the nature of God.”). [15] The phrase “evil spirit which has been spoken of by our fathers” (Mosiah 4:14) may have reference to the description of Lucifer’s interactions with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, which would have been set forth in the “account of the creation of the world, and also of Adam and Eve,” which was contained in the first of the “five books of Moses” included in the brass plates (1 Nephi 5:11). King Benjamin, like Lehi and all the faithful prophets who preceded Benjamin, “taught [his children and people] concerning the records which were written on the plates of brass” and urged them to “search them diligently, that ye may profit thereby” (Mosiah 1:3-4, 7).

Lehi described Lucifer being cast out of heaven for rebellion to his son Jacob as follows: “According to the things which I have read [in the Brass Plates], [I] must needs suppose that an angel of God, according to that which is written, had fallen from heaven; wherefore, he became a devil, having sought that which was evil before God. And because he had fallen from heaven, and had become miserable forever, he sought also the misery of all mankind. Wherefore, he said unto Eve, yea, even that old serpent, who is the devil, who is the father of all lies, wherefore he said: Partake of the forbidden fruit, and ye shall not die, but ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil” (2 Nephi 2:17-18).

While Isaiah also spoke about Lucifer’s “[fall] from heaven” and rebellious desire to “ascend into heaven . . . and be like the most High” (Isaiah 14:12-19), as Robert L. Millet has written, “the Joseph Smith translation of Genesis 3:1-5, found in Moses 4:1-4, “is a plain account of the grand council in heaven, which tells us that Jehovah was selected as the Savior and Lucifer was cast from heaven for rebellion.” This account, Millet suggests, may have been “found on the plates of brass.” Quoting Robert J. Mathews, he adds, “the JST, having received the touch of restoration through the hand of the Prophet of God, resembles the doctrinal content of the Brass Plates more fully than does any other Bible.” Millet, “The Plates of Brass: A Witness of Christ,” quoting Robert J. Matthews, “The Joseph Smith Translation—Historical Source and Doctrinal Companion to the Doctrine & Covenants,” Ninth Annual Church Educational System Religious Educators’ Symposium, Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1985, 22.

Moses’s account of these events in Moses 4:1-4, which King Benjamin alludes to and which he declared that he had taught to his sons (and by implication, “with the assistance of the holy prophets who were among [his] people,” he taught his people), will be very familiar to Latter-day Saint temple worshippers (note Satan’s many uses of the egotistical “I” and “me” contrasted to the Savior’s use of “thy” and “thine”):

1 And I, the Lord God, spake unto Moses, saying: That Satan, whom thou hast commanded in the name of mine Only Begotten, is the same which was from the beginning, and he came before me, saying—Behold, here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor.

2 But, behold, my Beloved Son, which was my Beloved and Chosen from the beginning, said unto me—Father, thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever.

3 Wherefore, because that Satan rebelled against me, and sought to destroy the agency of man, which I, the Lord God, had given him, and also, that I should give unto him mine own power; by the power of mine Only Begotten, I caused that he should be cast down;

4 And he became Satan, yea, even the devil, the father of all lies, to deceive and to blind men, and to lead them captive at his will, even as many as would not hearken unto my voice.

[16] Fluckiger, Drawing Upon the Spiritual Treasures of the Temple, chapter 4, “The Spiritual Treasure of Increased Faith to Follow Jesus Christ.”

Table 1. King Benjamin’s sermon compared with the Creation narrative. Verses in the left column are from Mosiah, verses in the right are from Genesis unless otherwise noted.*

King Benjamin’s Sermon;	Creation Narrative;
“from the beginning” (2:21)	“in the beginning” (1:1);
“that God who has created you” (2:20) “who has created you” (2:21) “he hath created you” (2:23) “ye were created” (2:25) “him who created you” (2:25);	“so God created man in his own image” (1:27);
“this day” (2:9, 14, 15, 30) “day to day” (2:21) “days” (2:12, 16, 19)	“the first day . . . the second day . . .” and so forth (1:5–2:3);
“whole soul” (2:20) “granted that ye should live” (2:20) “lending you breath” (2:21) “your whole souls” (2:21) “immortal spirit” (2:28) “granted unto you your lives” (2:23) “his own soul” (2:33) “his immortal soul” (2:38);	“And the LORD God . . . breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (2:7);
“ye were created of the dust of the earth” (2:25) “I am also of the dust. . . . I am . . . about to yield up this mortal frame to its mother earth” (2:26);	“And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground” (2:7) “For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (3:19);
“keep his commandments” (2:22) “do as he hath commanded you” (2:24) “the commandments of God” (2:31) “that which was commanded them of the Lord” (2:35) “keep the commandments of God” (2:41);	“And God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply” (1:28) “And the Lord God commanded the man” (2:16);
“obey the evil spirit” (2:32, 37) “obey that spirit” (2:33);	“Satan rebelled against me . . . I caused that he should be cast down; And he became Satan, yea, even the devil, the father of all lies, to deceive and to blind men, and to lead them captive at his will. . . . And Satan . . . sought also to beguile Eve” (Moses 4:3–6; 2 Nephi 2:17–18);
“live and move” (2:21);	“every living creature that moveth” (1:21, 28);
“do according to your own will” (2:21);	“thou mayest choose for thyself” (Moses 3:17);
“transgressed the law of God” (2:33) “transgress and go contrary to that which has been spoken” (2:36) “those that have fallen into transgres­sion” (2:40);	“she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat” (3:6);
“walking . . . before God” (2:27);	“they were walking in the garden” in “the presence of the Lord God” (Moses 4:14);
“dieth in his sins” (2:33);	“but, remember that I forbid it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Moses 3:17) “hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat, if so thou shouldst surely die?” (Moses 4:17);
“his own knowledge” (2:33) “there are not any . . . but what knoweth” (2:34) “ye have known” (2:36):	“and the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew” (3:7) “Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil” (3:22);
“ye do withdraw yourselves from the Spirit of the Lord” (2:36) “the demands of divine justice do awaken his immortal soul to a lively sense of his own guilt, which doth cause him to shrink from the presence of the Lord” (2:38):	“And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden” (3:8);
“garments” (2:28)	“coats of skins” (3:21)

*From Miller, “King Benjamin’s Sermon as a Type of Temple Text,” 10-11.