“Get Thee Hence, Satan”
Joseph Smith Translation, Matthew 4:1–10
1 Then Jesus was led up of the Spirit, into the wilderness, to be with God.
2 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, and had communed with God, he was afterwards an hungered, and was left to be tempted of the devil.
3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
4 But Jesus answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
5 Then Jesus was taken up into the holy city, and the Spirit setteth him on the pinnacle of the temple.
6 Then the devil came unto him and said, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down, for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
7 Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
8 And again, Jesus was in the Spirit, and it taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them.
9 And the devil came unto him again, and said, All these things will I give unto thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
10 Then said Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan; for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Then the devil leaveth him.
Bishop Keith B. McMullin said:
“. . . [N]o matter how well-intentioned or watchful we are, the journey [of mortal life] causes us to suffer temptation. Not even the Savior escaped it, and the temptations He suffered at the outset of His ministry typify those that beset us. Speaking of these temptations—to turn stones into bread, to cast Himself from the temple’s pinnacle, and to sell His soul for earth’s treasures (see Matt. 4:2–10)—President David O. McKay said, ‘Classify them, and you will find that under one of those three nearly every given temptation that makes you and me spotted . . . comes to us as (1) a temptation of appetite; (2) a yielding to the pride and fashion and vanity of those alienated from the things of God; or (3) a gratifying of the . . . desire for the riches of the world, or power among men’ (in Conference Report, Apr. 1911, 59).”
(“Welcome Home,” Ensign, May 1999, 80.)
