“Go Ye Out from Babylon”
Doctrine and Covenants 133:5–14
5 Go ye out from Babylon. Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord.
6 Call your solemn assemblies, and speak often one to another. And let every man call upon the name of the Lord.
7 Yea, verily I say unto you again, the time has come when the voice of the Lord is unto you: Go ye out of Babylon; gather ye out from among the nations, from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
8 Send forth the elders of my church unto the nations which are afar off; unto the islands of the sea; send forth unto foreign lands; call upon all nations, first upon the Gentiles, and then upon the Jews.
9 And behold, and lo, this shall be their cry, and the voice of the Lord unto all people: Go ye forth unto the land of Zion, that the borders of my people may be enlarged, and that her stakes may be strengthened, and that Zion may go forth unto the regions round about.
10 Yea, let the cry go forth among all people: Awake and arise and go forth to meet the Bridegroom; behold and lo, the Bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him. Prepare yourselves for the great day of the Lord.
11 Watch, therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour.
12 Let them, therefore, who are among the Gentiles flee unto Zion.
13 And let them who be of Judah flee unto Jerusalem, unto the mountains of the Lord’s house.
14 Go ye out from among the nations, even from Babylon, from the midst of wickedness, which is spiritual Babylon.
Elder D. Todd Christofferson said:
“Zion is both a place and a people. Zion was the name given to the ancient city of Enoch in the days before the Flood. . . . Later, Jerusalem and its temple were called Mount Zion, and the scriptures prophesy of a future New Jerusalem where Christ shall reign as ‘King of Zion,’ when ‘for the space of a thousand years the earth shall rest’ (Moses 7:53, 64). . . .
“The antithesis and antagonist of Zion is Babylon. The city of Babylon was originally Babel, of Tower of Babel fame, and later became the capital of the Babylonian empire. Its principal edifice was the temple of Bel, or Baal, the idol referred to by Old Testament prophets as ‘The Shame,’ given the sexual perversions that were associated with its worship. [See Bible Dictionary, ‘Assyria and Babylonia’; ‘Baal’; ‘Babylon or Babel.’] Its worldliness, its worship of evil, and the captivity of Judah there following the conquest of 587 B.C. all combine to make Babylon the symbol of decadent societies and spiritual bondage.
“It is with this backdrop that the Lord said to the members of His Church, ‘Go ye out of Babylon; gather ye out from among the nations, from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other’ (D&C 133:7). He called for the elders of His Church to be sent forth across the world to accomplish this gathering, commencing an effort that continues in full vigor today. . . .
“And so today the Lord’s people are gathering ‘out from among the nations’ as they gather into the congregations and stakes of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that are scattered throughout the nations.”
(“Come to Zion,” Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2008, 37.)
