Episode 310: The incredible journey begins

1 Nephi 1-4

And it came to pass exceedingly

1 ¹ My name is Nephi. I'm knowledgeable and highly favored by God.

² Though I am a Jew, I'm writing this in my father's language (Egyptian).

³ This is a true story.

⁴ In the first year of King Zedekiah of Judah many prophets told the people to repent, or the city of Jerusalem would be destroyed.

^5-6 My father, Lehi, prayed, and a pillar of fire came out of a rock.

⁸ He thought he saw God sitting on a throne surrounded by countless singing angels.

⁹ One person came down from heaven who was brighter than the sun, followed by twelve others who were brighter than stars.

¹¹ They gave my father a book and told him to read it.

¹³ It said,

Woe to Jerusalem, for I've seen your abominations!

Many of you will die and many will be carried away to Babylon.

¹⁶ (Since I'm writing on plates, I'm only writing an abridgement of the things my father wrote about and saw.)

¹⁹ After my father saw these things, he told the wicked Jews what he had seen and that a Messiah was coming.

²⁰ They mocked him and tried to kill him

The incredible journey begins

2 ¹ God spoke to my father Lehi in a dream, saying,

Take your family into the wilderness because everyone's trying to kill you.

⁴ So he left his land, gold, silver, and precious things and went into the wilderness with his family, which included his wife Sariah, my three older brothers Laman, Lemuel, Sam, and me.

⁶ After traveling for three days, we arrived at a river which flowed into the Red Sea.

⁸ My father named the river Laman and the valley Lemuel, hoping it would make them stronger and more reliable.

¹¹ But Laman and Lemuel murmured against their father, complaining about our trip into the wilderness.

¹³ They didn't believe Jerusalem would be destroyed. They were like the Jews in Jerusalem who tried to kill my father.

¹⁶ Although I was young, I wanted to know the mysteries of God. So I cried out to the Lord. He visited me and he softened my heart so I would believe everything my father said.

¹⁷ I told Sam about what the Holy Spirit told me. And Sam believed me.

¹⁸ But Laman and Lemuel's hearts were too hard to believe me.

¹⁹ The Lord came to me again and said,

I'll lead you to a new land that I've prepared just for you, a land that is better than everywhere else on earth. ²³ But I'll curse your nonbelieving brothers and their descendants.

Oh my heck! We forgot the brass plates!

3 ¹ After I spoke with the Lord, I went to my father's tent. He said to me,

² God appeared to me in a dream and said,

Send your sons back to Jerusalem to get the brass plates upon which is recorded your genealogy and the history of the Jews. A man named Laban has the plates. Go get them from him.

⁹ So my brothers and I returned to Jerusalem.

¹¹ When we arrived, we cast lots to decide who would get the brass plates from Laban. The lot fell upon Laman, so he went in to talk to Laban about the plates.

¹³ But Laban refused to give Laman the plates, accused him of trying to rob him, and threatened to kill him.

¹⁴ Laman somehow managed to escape. After that, Laman, Lemuel, and Sam wanted to give up on the plates and return to the wilderness.

¹⁵ But I talked them out of it by making a little speech.

¹⁹ I told then that we needed to get the plates to teach our children the language of our fathers.

²² So my brothers and I decided to get my father's gold, silver, and precious things (that were left behind on their first wilderness trip), bring them to Laban, and offer to trade it all for the plates.

²⁵ Laban wanted our gold and precious things, but he also wanted to keep the plates. So he decided to kill us and take our stuff.

²⁷ But we escaped to the wilderness and hid in the cavity of a rock.

²⁸ Laman and Lemuel had had enough. They started to beat Sam and me with a rod.

²⁹ Then an angel appeared and said to them,

Why are you hitting your brother?

God has chosen him to rule over you because you are so evil.

Go to Jerusalem and God will deliver Laban into your hands.

³¹ After the angel left, Laman and Lemuel began to murmur once again, saying "Laban is a mighty man. He'll kill us all."