Many hit 2nd Nephi, run into Isaiah, and quietly give up. Kyle Smith opens this episode with the story that made him an “Isaiah defender” — overhearing a gas station clerk tell a new Book of Mormon reader to just skip the Isaiah chapters — and Julie lays out why that’s so costly: 66 chapters, 1,292 verses, roughly a third of the Book of Mormon quoting him, 57 quotations in the New Testament, and about 100 references in the Doctrine and Covenants. You’d have to play dodgeball with your scriptures to avoid Isaiah. And it isn’t optional: in 3rd Nephi 23:1 the Savior Himself gives a commandment to search these things, because, as 1st Nephi 19:23 puts it, Isaiah’s words more fully persuade us to believe in the Lord our Redeemer.
