Joseph Smith lapsed into transgression after the First Vision

Parent page: First Vision

Joseph Smith (1832): " [I] could find none that would believe the hevnly vision...I fell into transgressions and sinned in many things"

Text in blue is in Joseph Smith's own handwriting, the remainder in the handwriting of Frederick G. Williams.

[I] could find none that would believe the hevnly vision nevertheless I pondered these things in my heart about that time my mother and but after many days I fell into transgressions and sinned in many things which brought a wound upon my soul and there were many things which transpired that cannot be writen ^[1]

Joseph Smith (9 Nov. 1835): "I was verry concious that I had not kept the commandments, and I repented hartily for all my sins and transgression"

Joseph Smith's journal (scribe Warren Parrish):

When I was about 17 years old I saw another vision of angels, in the night season after I had retired to bed I had not been a sleep, when but was me ditating upon my past life and experiance, I was verry concious that I had not kept the commandments, and I repented hartily for all my sins and transgression, and humbled myself before Him^[2]

Orson Hyde (1842): "Some time after he had been given these heavenly revelations (in his earlier years), he lapsed into the errors and vanities of the world"

The vision closed and peace and calm filled his mind. Some time after he had been given these heavenly revelations (in his earlier years), he lapsed into the errors and vanities of the world, which he later was genuinely sorry for.^[3]

Notes

1. ↑ "History, circa Summer 1832," The Joseph Smith Papers.
2. ↑ "Journal, 1835–1836," The Joseph Smith Papers.
3. ↑ "Orson Hyde, Ein Ruf aus der Wüste (A Cry out of the Wilderness), 1842, extract, English translation," The Joseph Smith Papers.