- Verse 1: Selected from a discourse by Joseph Smith at Nauvoo, Illinois on May 21st, 1843.
- Verses 2-3: Selected from “Times and Seasons” (Nauvoo, Illinois), April 15th, 1842, vol. 3, no. 12, p. 75.
- Verses 4-5: Selected from a letter from Joseph Smith to the Quorum of the Twelve on December 15th, 1840.
- Verses 6-7: Selected from a letter from Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, William W. Phelps, and John Whitmer to “the Saints scattered abroad” in June 1835.
- Verses 8 and 14: Selected from remarks by Joseph Smith to the Relief Society at Nauvoo, Illinois, on March 17, 1842.
- Verses 9-10: From “To the Saints of God,” published in “Times and Seasons” in Nauvoo, Illinois on October 15th, 1842, vol. 3, no. 24, p. 952.
1. To be righteous is to be just and merciful.
2. While one portion of the human race is judging and condemning the other without mercy, the Great Parent of the universe looks upon the whole of the human family with paternal care and regard, viewing them as offspring.
3. Without any of those contracted feelings that influence the human race, God causes the sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on both the just and the unjust.
4. Love is one of the chief characteristics of Deity and ought to be manifested by those who aspire to be the children of God.
5. Those filled with the love of God are not content with blessing their families alone but range through the whole world, anxious to bless the whole human race.
6. It is our duty to render to others freely – to always love them and ever succor them.
7. To be justified before God, we must love one another: we must overcome evil; we must visit the orphaned and the widowed in their affliction; and we must keep ourselves unspotted from the world, for such virtues flow from the great fountain of pure religion.
8. As you increase in innocence and virtue, as you increase in goodness, let your hearts expand, let them be enlarged towards others; be longsuffering, and bear with the faults and errors of humankind.
9. Consider the state of the afflicted and try to alleviate their sufferings; let your bread feed the hungry and your clothing cover the naked; let your liberality dry the tears of the orphan and cheer the disconsolate widow and widower.
10. Let your prayers, presence, and kindness alleviate the pains of the distressed; let your liberality contribute to their necessities; do good unto all.
11. The Holy Spirit shall be poured out at all times upon your heads when you are exercised with those principles of righteousness that are agreeable to the mind of God, and are properly affected one toward another, and are careful by all means to remember those who are in bondage, and in heaviness, and in deep affliction.
12. A person of property is to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, provide for the widow, dry up the tear of the orphan, and comfort the afflicted, whether in this church or in any other or in no church at all, wherever he or she finds them.
13. And if there are any among you who aspire after their own aggrandizement, and seek their own opulence, while their brethren are groaning in poverty, and are under sore trials and temptations, they cannot be benefited by the intercession of the Holy Spirit, which makes intercession for us day and night with groanings that cannot be uttered.
14. Don’t be limited in your views with regard to your neighbor’s virtue, but beware of self-righteousness, and be limited in the estimate of your own virtues, and do not think yourselves more righteous than others; you must enlarge your souls towards each other if you would do like Jesus, and carry your fellow-creatures to Abraham’s bosom.
15. Your mind, if you would lead a soul unto salvation, must stretch as high as the utmost heavens and search into and contemplate the darkest abyss and the broad expanse of eternity – you must commune with God.
16. The nearer we get to God – the Great Parent of the Universe – the more we are disposed to look with compassion on perishing souls; we feel that we want to take them upon our shoulders and cast their sins behind our backs.