First Nephi — Chapter 16
1 After I, Nephi, finished talking to my brothers, they said to me: “You have said hard things to us which we cannot stand to hear.”
2 Then I told them that I knew I had said things that would make wicked people feel guilty, because it was the truth, but good people would live with God at the end of the world. Wicked people do not like the truth, because it hits them in their hearts and makes them feel guilty.
3 [I told them:] “Now, my brothers, if you were good, and if you would obey the truth and please God, you would not complain and say: ‘You are saying bad things about us.’”
4 I, Nephi, told my brothers with all my power to keep God’s commandments.
5 They made themselves so humble before God that I was happy and hoped they would always keep his commandments.
6 All these things were said and done while my father lived in a tent in the valley he had named Lemuel.
7 Then I, Nephi, married one of Ishmael’s daughters, and my brothers also married Ishmael’s daughters. Zoram married Ishmael’s oldest daughter.
8 This was how my father kept all the commandments God had given to him. I was also very blessed.
9 Then the Lord spoke to my father at night and told him to travel into the desert the next day.
10 The next morning when my father woke up, he was very surprised to find a strangely-made brass ball on the ground in front of the tent door. The ball had two pointers, and one of them showed the way we should go in the desert.
11 We gathered all our things together to take into the desert, along with all the rest of the things God had given us. We got all kinds of seeds ready to take with us into the desert.
12 Then we took our tents and went across the river Laman into the desert.
13 We traveled for four days going south-southeast, and then set up our tents in a place we called Shazer.
14 Then we took our bows and arrows and went into the desert to kill food for our families. After we killed food for our families, we came back to them in Shazer. Then we went into the desert again, going in the same direction, keeping in the parts of the desert near the Red Sea where plants could grow.
15 We traveled for many days, killing food with our bows and arrows and our slings and stones as we went.
16 We went where the ball showed us to go, and it led us into the parts of the desert where plants could grow.
17 After we traveled for many days, we set up our tents for a little while to rest and get food for our families.
18 But as I went to kill food, I broke my bow, which was made of good steel. My brothers were angry at me for breaking my bow, because we did not get any food.
19 So we went back to our families without any food. Our families suffered because they did not have enough to eat, and they were tired from so much traveling.
20 Then Laman and Lemuel and Ishmael’s sons began complaining a lot because of their troubles and hard times in the desert. Even my father began to complain against God. They were all very sad and upset, so they complained against God.
21 Since I had broken my bow, and since my brothers’ bows no longer worked, things got very hard, and we could not get any food.
22 I, Nephi, said many things to my brothers because they were hardening their hearts and complaining against the Lord their God.
23 Then I, Nephi, made a bow out of wood, and an arrow out of a straight stick. I took my bow and arrow, and a sling and some stones, and said to my father: “Where should I go to get food?”
24 They had humbled themselves because of the many things I had said to them, so my father asked the Lord.
25 The Lord talked to my father, who was very sorry for having complained against the Lord.
26 Then the Lord said to him: “Read what is written on the ball.”
27 My father looked at what was written on the ball, and he got very scared, and shook, and so did my brothers and Ishmael’s sons, and our wives.
28 Then I, Nephi, looked at the pointers in the ball. I saw that they would work if we had faith and worked hard to do what they told us.
29 There was new writing on them that was easy to read, which helped us understand the ways of the Lord. It was written and changed at times when we were faithful and did what it told us. So we see that the Lord can use small things to make great things happen.
30 Then I, Nephi, went up to the top of the mountain as the ball told me.
31 I killed wild animals as food for our families.
32 I came back to our tents carrying the animals I had killed. When they saw that I had gotten food, they were very happy! Then they were humble before the Lord and thanked him.
33 Then we traveled again, going just about the same way we had in the beginning. After we had traveled for many days, we set up our tents again so we could rest for a while.
34 Then Ishmael died and was buried in the place called Nahom.
35 Ishmael’s daughters were very sad because of their father’s death and their troubles in the desert. They complained against my father for bringing them out of Jerusalem, and said: “Our father is dead, and we have traveled in the desert a long time. We have been hungry and thirsty and tired. And after all this, we are going to die of hunger in the desert.”
36 This is what they said against my father and me. They wanted to go back to Jerusalem.
37 Laman said to Lemuel and to Ishmael’s sons: “Let’s kill our father, and our brother Nephi, who has made himself a ruler and teacher over us, his older brothers.
38 “He says the Lord has talked with him, and that angels have blessed him. But we know he is lying. He tells us these things and plays tricks on our eyes, thinking he will lead us away into some strange desert place, where he will be our king and ruler, to do what he wants with us.” This was how Laman made them angry.
39 But the Lord was with us, and his voice came and said many words to them, to correct them. After the voice of the Lord corrected them, they stopped being angry. They repented of their sins, so the Lord blessed us with food again, and we did not die.
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