One Says You Haven't Arrived. One Says You Haven't Been Forgotten.

September 28–October 4, 2026 · Official reading: Isaiah 40–49 · General conference weekend lesson

Nephi picked two chapters of Isaiah to start the Book of Mormon. This week they’re your reading, and no class will teach them.

Last month I told you what happens in almost every Come, Follow Me class I’ve taught. We get to 1 Nephi 20 and 21. Everyone looks at the floor.

This week, the Church gives us those exact chapters to read.

This week’s reading is Isaiah 40 through 49. Two of those chapters, Isaiah 48 and 49, are also in the Book of Mormon. They’re 1 Nephi 20 and 21. And the two versions are not exactly the same. The small differences matter a lot.

This Sunday is general conference. That means no Sunday School class anywhere will teach these chapters.

So this one is yours.

One chapter challenges people who think they’re fine. The other answers people who think God forgot them. Watch why Nephi puts them together.

If we were in class, we’d start the way we always do. What was the first code? Egypt. What does it mean? America. This week, two more codes do most of the work: Jacob / Israel means people who believe, but don’t do it yet. Zion / Jerusalem means people who keep their covenants. Hold on to those two. And remember: these names describe where people are, not labels we stick on them. People move. Isaiah’s whole goal is to help everyone move up.

Remember the ladder from two weeks ago? Those two codes are rungs 3 and 4.

One reading, not two

I love the first printing of the Book of Mormon, from 1830. It reads more like a novel. In that first printing, Isaiah 48 and 49 aren’t two chapters. They’re one. That one chapter holds three things: Nephi’s reason for reading Isaiah, then Isaiah 48, then Isaiah 49. Right after it comes Nephi’s explanation. That’s our 1 Nephi 22.

So today we see two chapters of Isaiah plus an explanation. The first printing shows one reading, and then its answer. Remember that. It matters at the end.

Why Isaiah at all

Five chapters earlier, Nephi saw a vision of the whole world. Right when it got to what is about to happen in our day, the Lord stopped his pen:

“I, Nephi, am forbidden that I should write the remainder of the things which I saw and heard.” — 1 Nephi 14:28

Forbidden means not allowed. Three verses before that, an angel told Nephi why. Someone else, “the apostle of the Lamb of God,” would write those things (14:25).

So when Nephi reads Isaiah to his brothers, he tells us why he’s doing it:

“That I might more fully persuade them to believe in the Lord their Redeemer I did read unto them that which was written by the prophet Isaiah.” — 1 Nephi 19:23

He wasn’t reading them history. He wasn’t reading them poetry. He was trying to help them believe in Jesus Christ. Remember that too.

The eight chapters before the big two

This week’s reading doesn’t start with Nephi’s two chapters. It starts at Isaiah 40, with the words that name this week’s lesson:

“Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.” — Isaiah 40:1

You already know this one. It’s how Handel’s Messiah starts. Every valley shall be exalted is Isaiah 40:4. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd is 40:11. For unto us a child is born is Isaiah 9:6. You’ve been hearing Isaiah sung at Christmas your whole life.

Two verses later comes the voice crying in the wilderness. Remember him? The man who wore camel hair and ate large grasshoppers?

Lehi preached about that verse back in 1 Nephi 10. Then John the Baptist used it to explain who he was. The Chosen puts it in John’s mouth in Season 1, Episode 5.

Isaiah 42 tells us about a Servant: “Behold my servant, whom I uphold.” Matthew sees part of this fulfilled in Jesus’ ministry (Matthew 12:17–18).

But here’s a door I want to open for you. Isaiah’s prophecies often come true more than once. Jesus said it Himself, about Isaiah: “all things that he spake have been and shall be” (3 Nephi 23:3). Have been, and shall be. Remember our very first lesson? “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be” (Ecclesiastes 1:9). That’s how Isaiah works. One prophecy. More than one fulfillment.

So keep your eyes open. Isaiah uses my servant for more than one person.

And here’s one of the biggest keys to the whole book. Every great story has two main characters: a hero and a villain. Isaiah does too. The hero is the Lord’s Servant. The villain is the Assyrian, the Anti-Christ (that’s John the Revelator’s word for him, others will also have words for him), the evil king who thinks he’s as strong as God: “By the strength of my hand I have done it” (Isaiah 10:13). Remember Assyria from class? Hint: He’s the villain all the way through the book. Two weeks ago I told you Assyria is the antagonist of the entire book. Every story needs one.

Once you see those two, you’ll find them all over Isaiah. Every week, look for them. Where is the Servant? Where is the Assyrian? We’ll meet the Servant again. You really have to look to find him hiding in almost every chapter in this lesson, notably in chapter 48, and especially in 49.

Here’s a hint: he doesn’t always go by Servant. Read 1 Nephi 20:14–15. Who does God say He “hath loved” and “called”? And look what He sends him to do to Babylon.

Then Isaiah 43 starts with the verse The Chosen built its very first episode around:

“But now thus saith the LORD that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.” — Isaiah 43:1

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you.”

Isaiah 43:1

“I have called you by name; you are mine.”

Isaiah 43:1

The episode is called I Have Called You by Name. Mary of Magdala learned this verse from her dad when she was a little girl. At the end of the episode, Jesus finds her. He calls her by her real name, the name nobody had used for her in years.

Now watch what Isaiah does with the word call in these chapters. God calls every star by name (40:26). He calls Jacob by name (43:1). He even calls a king from another country, named Cyrus: “I have even called thee by thy name… though thou hast not known me” (45:4). Isaiah named King Cyrus more than 150 years before he set the captives free. That freaked out the scholars (at least the ones who don’t believe in God or prophecy), so they had to come up with a way to explain away that Isaiah could see the future. More on that later.

For eight chapters, the one doing the calling is God.

Then, in chapters 46 and 47, God pulls down Babylon’s fake gods, and then Babylon itself.

Here’s how. Babylon’s idols are loaded onto animals. They’re “a burden to the weary beast” (46:1). That means the animals are worn out from carrying them. Babylon has to carry its gods. Our God carries us.

Then Babylon brags, “I am, and none else beside me” (47:8). Those are God’s own words from Isaiah 45:5, “I am the LORD, and there is none else.” Babylon just put herself in God’s place. Babylon talks like God.

That’s how you spot Isaiah’s villain, whatever name he’s wearing. The Assyrian brags, “By the strength of my hand I have done it” (10:13). The king of Babylon says, “I will be like the most High” (14:14). In Isaiah 14, the king of Babylon and the Assyrian show up in the very same chapter (14:4, 25). Different names. Same villain. He always tries to take God’s place. What in your life promises to give you what only God can give? Your phone? Being popular? Your grades?

Now go back to chapter 43. There’s a promise there that’s easy to miss. First, Isaiah reminds us of the Red Sea. God is the one “which maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters” (43:16). Then he says this:

“Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.” — Isaiah 43:18–19

Same God. A new kind of miracle. He says he will do a new thing.

But look closer. At the Red Sea, God made a path by taking the water away. Here He does the opposite. He brings water to a desert where there isn’t any: “I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen” (43:20). Same God. Opposite miracle. If you were only watching for another parted sea, you’d miss it.

That’s the point. God isn’t stuck doing things the way He did them before. Remember ye not the former things doesn’t mean forget the past. Three chapters later He says, “Remember the former things of old” (46:9). Remember that He did it. Just don’t box Him into how He did it.

Isaiah says this over and over in these chapters. God talks about former things and new things again and again (42:9; 46:10; 48:3–6). He tells us before things happen, so that when they come true we’ll know it was Him (48:5). He even promises “new things… even hidden things, and thou didst not know them” (48:6). Things you haven’t even thought of.

Shall ye not know it? means Won’t you recognize it? That’s the real danger. Not that God won’t do something new. It’s that we won’t notice, because we’re looking for the old shape.

The Book of Mormon says it too. Some people would say, “A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible.” The Lord answers: “Because that I have spoken one word ye need not suppose that I cannot speak another; for my work is not yet finished” (2 Nephi 29:3, 9).

So open your mind.

Isaiah says God has things ready that no one has ever seen or heard (Isaiah 64:4). Paul quotes it: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). He has things ready for you that you haven’t even dreamed of yet.

You may notice this verse (I will even make a way) is at the bottom of every page on our website. That’s on purpose. The Chosen uses this verse too, in Season 3, Episode 7.

The first half: for people who think they’ve made it

Now we get to Nephi’s two chapters.

Now read verse 1 the way Nephi’s version gives it to us:

“Hearken and hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, or out of the waters of baptism, who swear by the name of the Lord, and make mention of the God of Israel, yet they swear not in truth nor in righteousness.” — 1 Nephi 20:1

Jacob and Israel, in one verse. You know the code: people who believe, but don’t do it yet.

Now look at the words or out of the waters of baptism. They aren’t in the Bible. They weren’t in the first printing of the Book of Mormon either. Joseph Smith added them to help us understand that this was written to us. It was a prophet writing a note beside another prophet’s words.

Here’s why that note is so amazing. By John’s time, many people in Judah washed in something called a mikveh. It was a bath you dipped yourself in, over and over, whenever you needed to be clean again. Baptism is different. Someone with authority baptizes you, one time, so your sins can be forgiven. Who has baptism? We do. This is to us.

And the man who came preaching that kind of baptism was that voice crying in the wilderness. Remember him? The man in camel hair from Isaiah 40:3, in this same week’s reading.

On May 15, 1829, John the Baptist put his hands on Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery. He gave them the keys of baptism (D&C 13). Eleven years later, Joseph read the words the waters of Judah, and he wrote a note beside them: the waters of baptism.

The man who added the waters of baptism to Isaiah’s words had received the keys of baptism from the man in camel hair eleven years earlier.

Now count what verse 1 says about these people:

• The name: they are called by the name of Israel.
• The water: they came out of the waters of baptism.
• The promise: they swear by the name of the Lord.
• The words: they make mention of the God of Israel. In other words, they talk about Him.

That’s four signs that these people made covenants with God. Then comes the problem: yet they swear not in truth nor in righteousness. They don’t really mean it.

These aren’t strangers. They’re members of the Church. They’re baptized, they have the name, they made promises, and they say all the right things. Verse 1 tells you who this is about. Verse 2 tells you what’s wrong.

Nephi’s version of the next verse makes it even clearer:

“Nevertheless, they call themselves of the holy city, but they do not stay themselves upon the God of Israel.” — 1 Nephi 20:2

Stay themselves upon means lean on. The Bible says they do lean on God. The Book of Mormon says they do not. That’s one little word. But only the Book of Mormon version fits with verse 1. In the Bible, verse 2 doesn’t agree with verse 1. In Nephi’s version, it does.

They “call themselves of the holy city.” What do we call ourselves? Saints. The word saint means holy one. It’s in the name of our Church, and we say it every Sunday.

That’s the trap for people who have made covenants… us.

You can have the name and live in the right place and still not lean on the One the name belongs to. The Lord told us what Zion really is: “the pure in heart” (D&C 97:21). Living at the right address doesn’t make you part of the family. And the holy city is only the address. It isn’t the foundation. The foundation is Jesus Christ: “it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation” (Helaman 5:12).

So the fix isn’t try harder. The problem in verse 2 is that they don’t lean on Him. So the fix is to lean on Him. The chapter shows what that looks like:

“O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river.” — Isaiah 48:18

Hearkened means listened and obeyed. Then comes the command: “Go ye forth of Babylon” (48:20). In our day, the Lord told us which Babylon He meant: “spiritual Babylon” (D&C 133:14). It isn’t a city you can move away from. It’s anything you lean on instead of Him.

The second half: for people who think they’ve been forgotten

Isaiah 49 talks to the opposite kind of heart. In the Book of Mormon, it starts with a sentence that no other copy of Isaiah has:

“Hearken, O ye house of Israel, all ye that are broken off and are driven out, because of the wickedness of the pastors of my people; yea, all ye that are broken off, that are scattered abroad, who are of my people, O house of Israel.” — 1 Nephi 21:1

That’s the Lord talking. Notice He says my people. And this isn’t just a history lesson about Jerusalem long ago. Nephi tells us what all these chapters are about. They’re about the house of Israel, “scattered upon all the face of the earth” (1 Nephi 22:3). And Nephi says, “it meaneth us in the days to come” (22:6). President Benson taught that the Nephites never had the Book of Mormon. It was written for us.

So listen to this verse in two ways. Pastors are shepherds, the people whose job is to take care of the flock. If you’ve ever been pushed away, the Lord knows why, and He names the cause Himself. And if you take care of anyone — a younger brother or sister, a class, a quorum or class presidency, a ward — this verse is aimed at you. I teach Sunday School. So I read this verse about myself first.

The hidden Servant — last week’s promise

“In the shadow of his hand hath he hid me, and made me a polished shaft; in his quiver hath he hid me.” — Isaiah 49:2

A shaft is an arrow. A quiver is the case an archer keeps arrows in. This Servant is hidden. Twice. In one verse. And notice where he’s hidden: in the shadow of his hand. Whose hand? His hand. God’s.

The villain tries to take God’s place. The hero lets God hold him. That’s the whole difference between them.

Remember the four names in Isaiah 11 from two weeks ago? A stem, a rod, a root and a Branch. In D&C 113, the Lord explains three of them. The stem of Jesse: “It is Christ” (113:2). The rod: “a servant in the hands of Christ” (113:4). The root of Jesse: verses 5–6. The Branch? D&C 113 doesn’t explain it.

Last week I said I think those two things are connected. Here they are, side by side. I’m not going to tell you what to see. That one is for the deep end.

Then the Lord speaks to the people who were scattered:

“But, behold, Zion hath said: The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me—but he will show that he hath not.” — 1 Nephi 21:14

Zion. Remember that code? People who keep their covenants. Even they can feel forgotten.

Forsaken means left behind. That last part, but he will show that he hath not, isn’t in the Bible. In the Book of Mormon, God answers in the very same verse as the complaint. It’s there in the first printing, from 1830.

The people who feel forgotten in verse 14 are the same people who were pushed away in verse 1. The Lord names the cause first. Then He answers their sadness.

Then:

“For can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee… Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands.” — 1 Nephi 21:15–16

Could a mother forget her own baby? It almost never happens. Even if it did, God says, I will not forget you. Graven means carved. In chapter 43 He said, I have called thee by thy name. In chapter 49 He says, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands. First He calls you by name. Then He shows you where He keeps you.

When the risen Jesus came to the Nephites, the first thing He did was hold out those hands, “that ye may feel the prints of the nails in my hands and in my feet.” And the people came to Him “one by one” (3 Nephi 11:14–15).

Why Nephi read them together

Remember the one chapter from the 1830 printing? This is why.

Isaiah 48 fixes false confidence: thinking you’re fine when you’re not. Isaiah 49 fixes false despair: thinking God forgot you when He didn’t. Nephi read them together.

Now look at the ladder again. These last chapters climb it in order. Babylon falls (chapters 46–47, rung 2). Jacob and Israel get warned (chapter 48, rung 3). Zion gets comforted (chapter 49, rung 4). And the Servant is hidden in God’s hand (49:2, rung 5). Every warning is an invitation to climb one rung.

Most of us need both chapters, on different days. Some weeks you’re the house of Jacob, sure of your name but not leaning on anything. Some weeks you’re Zion on the ground, sure God forgot you.

This week’s reading starts with Comfort ye my people. That comfort is for both kinds of people. And it’s personal. He calls you by your name.

This week, read 1 Nephi 21:16 and put your name in it.

One of the strongest testimonies I have gained was about a concept deep within this lesson: Isaiah’s ladder to heaven. The concept seemed fantastic and complex. I wondered if it could really be there, hidden in the text. What book did I turn to besides Isaiah itself? Isaiah Decoded, by Avraham Gileadi. I went far beyond the text. I put every single scripture into a spreadsheet and searched each one, until I had searched them all. Then I got my answer, nearly as strong as when I found out that Jesus is the Christ, that Joseph was His Prophet, and that the Book of Mormon really happened. I know it is real. It is true.

Next week

Jacob, Nephi’s younger brother, picks up this same reading at Isaiah 49:22 and keeps going into Isaiah 50.

Next week’s reading challenges us to Awake, awake three times. Joseph Smith got an answer about what that may mean. And it includes Isaiah 53, which may look very familiar to you.

A prophet named Abinadi quoted the whole chapter to a wicked king, and it cost him his life. And when the risen Jesus taught the Nephites, He quoted the chapter right before it and the chapter right after it, but never mentioned it. Interesting. He never read them chapter 53. And many today often call it the Forbidden Chapter. I’ll show you why.

READY TO GO DEEPER? “He that will not harden his heart, to him is given the greater portion of the word.” — Alma 12:10 → Study Deeper

Ken Krogue is the founder of The Covenant Project and has been deeply studying Isaiah for more than ten years.

Watch the episodes discussed here at The Chosen’s official streaming site.

Human → AI → Human: Conceived and directed by Ken Krogue → developed with Orson (Claude) and Nathan (ChatGPT) → reviewed and approved by Ken before publication. Visual concepts and production were developed with AI under human editorial direction.