Repent or their skins will be whiter than yours (Jacob 1-5)

Episode 11: Repent or their skins will be whiter than yours

Jacob 1-5

The Nephites indulge themselves somewhat in wicked practices (like polygamy)

1 ¹ In the year 544 BCE, Nephi commanded me, Jacob, to write about the history of the Nephites on the small plates.

^9-11 Nephi was getting old, and the people wanted to replace him with a new king, a second Nephi, and then a third Nephi, and so forth. ¹² Then Nephi died.

¹⁴ The people were divided into two groups: the Nephites, who were friendly toward Nephi; and the Lamanites, who wanted to destroy the Nephites. ¹⁵ The Nephites, under their second king, were wicked, having many wives and concubines, like David and Solomon. ¹⁶ They also became proud and greedy for silver and gold.

¹⁸ Nephi consecrated my brother Joseph and me as priests and teachers. ¹⁹ We did our best not to get the blood of the people on our garments so we would be spotless on the last day.

Jacob speaks to the Nephites

2¹ These are the words that Jacob, the brother of Nephi, spoke to the Nephites: ² I’m trying to rid my garments of your sins. ^5-15 But you sins are abominable to me and God, who could smite you to the dust with one glance of his eye.

¹⁹ If you hope in Christ, you will become rich, but you should use your wealth to do good and care for the poor.

²³ This is what God says: ²⁴ “David and Solomon had many wives and concubines, which was abominable to me. ²⁷ So listen to me: No man shall have more than one wife. And no man shall have any concubines. ²⁸ Because I delight in the chastity of women.”

Repent or their skins will be whiter than yours

3 ³ The Lamanites aren’t filthy like you, yet they are cursed with a sore cursing. ⁴ If you don’t repent, they will possess your land. ⁵ You hate the Lamanites because they are filthy and their skins have been cursed with blackness. But they are more righteous than you. Because they don’t have more than one wife and they have no concubines.

⁸ Unless you repent their skins will be whiter than yours. ⁹ Don’t revile the Lamanites for the darkness of their skins. Their filthiness came upon them because of their faithers.

¹¹ Don’t become angels of the devil to be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone which is the second death.

^12-13 I said many more things to the Nephites, but I can’t fit them on these small plates. There’s much more written about their wars and kings on the larger plates. ¹⁴ These plates are called the plates of Jacob, made by the hand of Nephi.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

On the difficulty of engraving words upon plates

4 ¹ I can only include a few of my words here because I’m engraving them on plates.

⁴ I'm writing these things so people will know that we knew Christ was coming many hundreds of years before he came.

⁶ We tell trees, mountains, and waves what to do in the name of Jesus, and they obey us.

¹⁴ The Jews were stiff-necked people, who despised the words of plainness, killed the prophets, and tried to understand things that they couldn’t understand. God has taken away his plainness from them so that they will stumble.

A tale of two olive trees

5 ¹ Remember when Zenos told the story about the two olive trees?

A few more words about this episode

In the year 544 BCE (1:1a): Until 2013, the LDS church had a note attached to 1 Nephi 2:4 saying that Lehi left Jerusalem in exactly 600 BCE. But the church is no longer as sure about that date as they used to be.; But if we use the 600 BCE date for Lehi's departure, then 55 years later would be 544 BCE -- as the note for this verse used to say, but has now been changed to "about 544 BC."
Nephi commanded me, Jacob, to write about the history of the Nephites on the small plates. (1:1b): Nephi is getting ready to die so he tells his little brother Jacob to write precious things down on "the small plates" -- not "the other plates" that Nephi wrote on for Christ's sake.; You remember Jacob, don't you? He's the guy that "spoke about exceedingly many things" back in 2 Nephi 6-10, including wicked Jews, blessed Gentiles, and a completely Mormon America.
I can only include a few of my words here because I’m engraving them on plates. (4:1): Jacob begins chapter 4 by using 150 words to tell us that he can't use many words because of the difficulty of engraving words on plates.
I'm writing these things so people will know that we knew Christ was coming many hundreds of years before he came. (4:4): Jacob needs to engrave his words on plates so he can tell the Nephites about the birth of Jesus, which will happen 500 or so years in the future. Of course, all this is old news by now, as it has been announced many times before by Lehi, Nephi, and himself. (See 1 Nephi 1:8-11, 10:4, 11.13-36, 12:6-10, 19:8-12; 2 Nephi 11:4-7, 33:10)
The Jews were stiff-necked people, who despised the words of plainness, killed the prophets (4:14): See 1 Nephi 1:19, 2:13, 19:13; 2 Nephi 10:3, 25:2, 30:7 for previous insults to Jews.; It must have made the Jews sad when God took away his plainness from them. God's plainness is one of the things I like best about him.
Remember when Zenos told the story about the two olive trees? (5:1): In the last chapter, Jacob told us (using many more words than necessary) about the difficulty of engraving words on plates. Now he tells us about two olive trees.; This is the longest and most boring chapter in the most boring book ever written (The Book of Mormon). Thirty-one times it came to pass that the trees were cumbered, grafted, pruned, plucked, dunged, and dug about for no apparent purpose, except to waste 3733 words.; According to the Book of Mormon, Zenos was an Old Testament prophet that prophesied plainly (like a Book of Mormon prophet) about the future coming of Jesus. Of course the evil Catholics stripped him and all of his prophecies from the Bible, along with those of Zenock, Neum.