Sons of Perdition

The vision of the glories defines one class by subtraction: everyone else is saved, and these are the exception. It then refuses to say how many they are or where they end.

What this page maps. Modern revelation, reported as the text gives it. D&C 76 is a first-person plural vision report; D&C 29 speaks in a first-person divine voice throughout. Statements are attributed to the vision account and to the revelation’s voice as the text frames them, and neither section’s occasion, date, or place is available to this page.

Standing disclosure — KJV-overlap material. This page reports verbal correspondence with the King James text as textual fact, including where the correspondence follows the KJV’s English translation. What that correspondence implies about the origin of the Doctrine and Covenants text — in any direction — is an external question outside this wiki’s scope.

Account

The name, and the refusal to count

The phrase “sons of perdition” stands at exactly two frozen verses in the corpus, both in this vision: D&C 76:32 and D&C 76:43. (Distinct frozen verses, whole corpus, case-insensitive exact substring.) The singular title is applied once, to one being: “And was called Perdition, for the heavens wept over him” (D&C 76:26).

The vision bounds the class three times, and each statement is an exclusion rather than a census. They are “the only ones on whom the second death shall have any power” (D&C 76:37); “the only ones who shall not be redeemed in the due time of the Lord, after the sufferings of his wrath” (D&C 76:38); and of the Son the vision says “he saves all except them” (D&C 76:44). Against that, it withholds the magnitude: “And the end thereof, neither the place thereof, nor their torment, no man knows” (D&C 76:45); “Neither was it revealed, neither is, neither will be revealed unto man, except to them who are made partakers thereof” (D&C 76:46).

The fall of the one called Perdition

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () - D&C 76:26: “And was called Perdition, for the heavens wept over him—he was Lucifer, a son of the morning.” - Isaiah 14:12: “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!”

“son of the morning” stands at exactly four frozen verses in the corpus: these two, D&C 76:27, and 2 Nephi 24:12. Divergences: the prophecy addresses the figure in the second person and the vision describes him in the third; the vision adds an article — “a son of the morning” — that neither carrier of the prophecy has.

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () - D&C 76:27: “And we beheld, and lo, he is fallen! is fallen, even a son of the morning!” - 2 Nephi 24:12: “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! Art thou cut down to the ground, which did weaken the nations!”

The doubling — “he is fallen! is fallen” (D&C 76:27) — has no counterpart in either carrier of the prophecy. The corpus’s other doubled falling has a different subject: “she is fallen, is fallen!” of the great church (D&C 88:105), and “Babylon is fallen, is fallen” (Revelation 14:8). The two doublings are reported side by side as textual facts; the vision does not link them and neither does this page.

The rebellion before Adam

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () - D&C 29:36: “for, behold, the devil was before Adam, for he rebelled against me, saying, Give me thine honor, which is my power” - Moses 4:1: “he came before me, saying—Behold, here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor.”

The three-word demand stands at exactly these two frozen verses in the corpus. What surrounds it differs: Moses 4:1 reports a full proposal preceding the demand, while D&C 29:36 reports the demand alone and adds a gloss the other does not carry — “which is my power” (D&C 29:36).

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () - D&C 29:36: “and also a third part of the hosts of heaven turned he away from me because of their agency” - Revelation 12:4: “And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth”

The fraction and the source-domain match; the noun does not — “hosts of heaven” against “stars of heaven.” The stated cause belongs to the revelation alone: the turning happens “because of their agency” (D&C 29:36), a clause with no counterpart in the other verse.

The unquenched fire

[Textual] — verbatim quotation. () - D&C 76:44: “to reign with the devil and his angels in eternity, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched, which is their torment” - Mark 9:48: “Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.”

The nine-word run stands at exactly four frozen verses in the corpus: D&C 76:44, Mark 9:44, Mark 9:46, and Mark 9:48. A differently worded prophecy of the same figure — “for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched” (Isaiah 66:24) — is disclosed because a reader scanning for the image will find it, but its wording is not the run counted above.

The same verse stacks the three punishment adjectives that D&C 19 had already redefined: “they shall go away into everlasting punishment, which is endless punishment, which is eternal punishment” (D&C 76:44). That redefinition and its distribution evidence are mapped at Endless Punishment and are not repeated here.

The sentence

[Textual] — verbatim quotation. () - D&C 29:28: “Wherefore I will say unto them—Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” - Matthew 25:41: “Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:”

Fourteen consecutive words match without variation. The revelation reports the sentence as future first-person speech (“I will say unto them” — D&C 29:28); the discourse frames the same words as what “shall he say” to those on the left hand (Matthew 25:41). The revelation’s next verse adds a statement the discourse does not carry: “never at any time have I declared from mine own mouth that they should return” (D&C 29:29).

Significance

The class is defined by what is said about everyone else. The vision’s arithmetic runs opposite to most descriptions of judgment: it establishes first that “all the rest shall be brought forth by the resurrection of the dead” (D&C 76:39) and that the Son “saves all the works of his hands” (D&C 76:43), and only then carves out an exception. The qualifying condition is correspondingly narrow, and it is stated in terms of prior possession rather than prior ignorance — “Having denied the Holy Spirit after having received it” (D&C 76:35), said of those “who know my power, and have been made partakers thereof” (D&C 76:31). Whether any particular person meets that condition is not a question the text takes up, and the vision explicitly refuses the scale of the class (D&C 76:45–46). This page reports the definition and the refusal together, because reporting either alone would misdescribe the passage.

Key references

D&C 76:25–29 — the one called Perdition; the doubled fall
D&C 76:31–38 — the condition; the second death; the two “only ones” statements
D&C 76:43–48 — the exception to universal salvation; the withheld magnitude
D&C 29:36–41 — the rebellion before Adam; the third part; the first death
Isaiah 14:12, 2 Nephi 24:12 — the two carriers of “Lucifer, son of the morning”
Moses 4:1 — “give me thine honor”
Matthew 25:41, Mark 9:48 — the sentence, and the unquenched fire

Degrees of Glory · Endless Punishment · Opposition and Agency · Atonement · Index · Connections

Sources

Doctrine and Covenants sections 29 and 76 (verse text only; headnotes excluded). Cross-references quoted from Isaiah 14, 2 Nephi 24, Moses 4, Revelation 12, Mark 9, and Matthew 25. Isaiah 66:24, Revelation 14:8, and D&C 88:105 are quoted inside disclosures rather than registered as connections of this page.

Every quote is verbatim from the frozen source text, cited to its exact reference and checked character-for-character; no quote crosses a verse boundary. Six connection records are registered here, all [textual] and all asserted_by: wiki — neither section names a source for any of the language tabled above. Distribution figures are counts of distinct frozen verses in the corpus, derived by search at the time of writing.