First Nephi — Chapter 8
1 We gathered all kinds of grain and fruit and vegetable seeds.
2 While we were in the desert, my father said to us: “I have had a dream or seen a vision.
3 “I am happy about Nephi and Sam because of what I saw in the vision, because I believe that they and many of their descendants will be saved.
4 “But Laman and Lemuel, I am sad and scared about you. I thought I saw a dark and sad wilderness.
5 “I saw a man dressed in white who came and stood before me.
6 “He told me to follow him.
7 “As I followed him, I saw I was in a dark and sad desert.
8 “After I traveled for many hours in the dark, I asked God to have mercy on me.
9 “After I prayed to God, I saw a big, wide field.
10 “I saw a tree in the field whose fruit would make people happy.
11 “I went to the tree and ate some of the fruit. It was the sweetest fruit I had ever tasted. The fruit was the whitest thing I had ever seen.
12 “When I ate the fruit, it filled my soul with joy. It was such good fruit that I wanted my family to eat it, too.
13 “I looked around to find my family. I saw a river that ran near the tree whose fruit I was eating.
14 “I looked to see where the river came from. I saw where it began a little ways away, and I saw your mother Sariah, and Sam, and Nephi up where the river began. They did not seem to know where to go.
15 “So I waved to them, and shouted for them to come where I was, and eat the good fruit.
16 “They came and ate the fruit.
17 “I wanted Laman and Lemuel to come eat the fruit, too, so I looked for them.
18 “I saw them, but they would not come eat the fruit.
19 “Then I saw an iron rod that ran alongside the river until it came to the tree.
20 “There was a narrow path leading to the tree right next to the iron rod. The path also led where the river began, and to such a wide field that it looked as big as the whole world.
21 “I saw so many people that I could not count them. Many of them were trying to find the path to the tree.
22 “They came and began to follow the path leading to the tree.
23 “But then a dark cloud came, and many who had begun to follow the path got lost.
24 “Others on the path took hold of the iron rod and followed it until they came to the tree and ate the fruit.
25 “But after they ate the fruit, they looked around and seemed to be ashamed.
26 “I looked around and saw a very big building on the other side of the river. It looked like it was floating in the sky above the earth.
27 “It was filled with men and women, both old and young. They wore fancy clothes, and they were pointing their fingers at those who were eating the fruit and making fun of them.
28 “Some people who tasted the fruit left the tree and got lost because the others made fun of them.”
29 Now I, Nephi, am not going to write down everything my father said.
30 But I will say that he saw other people coming to the tree by holding onto the iron rod, and when they got to the tree they ate the fruit.
31 He saw other people trying to get to the very big building.
32 Many of them drowned in the river. He lost sight of many of them who got lost on strange roads.
33 Many people went into that strange building in the air. When they got in, they began pointing at me and making fun of me and the other people who were eating the fruit, but we did not pay attention to them.
34 This is what my father said: “Whoever paid attention to them left the tree and got lost.”
35 My father said that Laman and Lemuel did not eat the fruit.
36 After my father told us all about his dream or vision, he told us he was very afraid for Laman and Lemuel. He was afraid they would be cut off from God.
37 He loved them, so he tried with all his heart to make them listen to him. He hoped that if they listened to him, God would have mercy on them and not cut them off.
38 When he was done preaching and prophesying to them, he told them to keep God’s commandments. Then he stopped talking to them.
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