Episode 3: Lehi's magic happy-fruit tree

1 Nephi 8-12

Lehi's magic happy-fruit tree

8 ^2-11 My father dreamed about a tree with white, sweet-tasting fruit.

¹² He wanted his family to eat the fruit.

^14-16 Nephi, Sam, and Sariah did; Laman and Lemuel didn't.

^19-27 An iron rod led people to the tree, but some were ashamed to eat its fruit after being taunted by well-dressed people in a building that floats in the sky.

²⁸ Those who didn't eat the fruit or who left after eating it were lost, drowned, or destroyed.

Nephi names his plates

9 ² I'm going to call these plates the plates of Nephi.

⁵ God commanded me to make these plates for a wise but unknown purpose.

Lehi’s prophecies

10 ² My father prophesied that:

^3-4 Six hundred years after my father left Jerusalem the Messiah (or the Savior of the world) would come.

⁷ A prophet would come before the Messiah to "prepare the way of the Lord" and baptize the Messiah.

^9-11 The Messiah will be killed by the Jews who dwindled in unbelief, and then he'll rise from the dead and give the Holy Ghost to the Gentiles.

¹⁵ My father spoke about many other things, but I won't tell you a about them here. I'll do that in another book.

A spirit shows Nephi everything his father saw

11 ^1-36 A spirit took me up to the top of a mountain and showed me everything my father saw: Jesus, John the Baptist, the twelve apostles, my father’s magic tree and iron rod, the large and spacious building, angels, devils, the condescension of God, the lamb of God, the Holy Ghost, devils, unclean spirits, the wisdom of the world, and an exceedingly white virgin who is the mother of the Son of God, after the manner of the flesh.

A dark, loathsome, filthy, idle, and abominable people

12 ¹ The angel said to me, "Behold your seed."

So I looked and saw multitudes of people, more people than there are sand on the seashore.

^2-8 And I saw wars, rumors of wars, and great slaughters, with so many cities that I couldn’t count them, with vapor of darkness, earthquakes, noises, smashed mountains, and sunken cities.

^6-10 I saw the heavens open, and the lamb of God descend, with the Holy Ghost falling on the twelve disciples of the lamb who will minister to my seed, whose garments have been made white in the blood of the lamb.

¹⁴ And the angel said to me, "Behold your seed, and the seed of your brothers."

¹⁹ I saw the seed of my brothers fighting against my seed.

²² The angel said, “Behold, these shall dwindle in unbelief.”

²³ And I looked and saw that they became a dark, loathsome, and a filthy people, full of idleness and all manner of abominations.