Second Nephi — Chapter 5
1 I, Nephi, prayed to the Lord my God many times because my brothers were angry with me.
2 But they got even more angry with me and wanted to kill me.
3 They said bad things about me, such as: “Our brother wants to be king, and he has made trouble for us. Let’s kill him now so we won’t have to listen to what he says anymore. We don’t want him to be our king, because we are the oldest, and we should be the rulers.”
4 I will not write all the bad things they said about me. It is enough for me to say that they tried to kill me.
5 But the Lord told me to get away from them and take everyone who wanted to go with me into the wilderness.
6 So I took my family, and Zoram and his family, and my older brother Sam and his family, and my younger brothers Jacob and Joseph, and my sisters, and everyone else who wanted to go with me. All who went with me believed in God’s warnings, so they listened to what I said.
7 We took our tents and everything else we could. We traveled in the wilderness for many days, and then set up our tents.
8 The people wanted to call the place we set up our tents “Nephi,” so that is what we called it.
9 And the people who were with me wanted to call themselves the people of Nephi.
10 We kept the commandments and did all the things in the law which God had told Moses to write down.
11 The Lord blessed us, and we prospered. We planted seeds, and our crops grew well, and we raised all kinds of flocks and herds and animals.
12 I, Nephi, had taken with me the brass plates, and the Liahona which the Lord had given to my father Lehi (which I wrote about before).
13 We greatly prospered in the land, and we had many children.
14 And I, Nephi, took the sword of Laban and made copies of it, in case the people called Lamanites found us and tried to destroy us. I knew they hated me and my children and all my people very much.
15 I taught my people how to build buildings, and how to make things out of wood, iron, copper, brass, steel, and gold, and silver, and other metal. We found lots of these things in the land.
16 And I, Nephi, built a temple like Solomon’s temple, but we did not have as many rich things for it, because we could not find them in the land. But it was very much like Solomon’s temple, and we did very good work.
17 I told my people to work hard with their hands.
18 They wanted me to be their king. But I did not want them to have a king. Even so, I did everything I could to help them.
19 What the Lord had said about my brothers had come true. He said I would be their ruler and their teacher. I had been their ruler and teacher, as the Lord commanded, up to the time they tried to kill me.
20 So what the Lord said to me came true, when he said: “If they will not listen to your words, they will be cut off from me.” And they were cut off from the Lord.
21 He cursed them because of their sins, and for making their hearts as hard as stone. They had been white and beautiful, but the Lord made their skin dark so my people would not want to mix with them.
22 The Lord God said: “I will make your people not want to mix with them until they repent of their sins. shake with fear before me.
23 “The children of whoever marries them will be cursed like them.” The Lord said this, and so it happened.
24 They became a lazy and evil people because of their curse, and they hunted in the wilderness for wild animals.
25 And the Lord God said to me: “They will be a punishing whip to your descendants, to make them remember me. If your descendants do not remember me, nor listen to my words, the Lamanites will whip and punish your descendants until they are destroyed.”
26 Then I, Nephi, made Jacob and Joseph priests and teachers over my people’s land.
27 And we were happy.
28 Thirty years had passed since we had left Jerusalem.
29 I kept my people’s history on the plates I made.
30 Then the Lord God said to me: “Make other plates. Write many things on them which are good in my sight, for the good of your people.”
31 So I, Nephi, did as the Lord commanded, and made these plates on which I have written these things.
32 I wrote down the things God wanted me to. If my people are happy with the things of God, they will be happy with what I have written on these plates.
33 If my people want to know more about the history of my people, they must read my other plates.
34 It is enough for me to say that after only forty years, we already had had wars and fights with my brothers.
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