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Ether — Chapter 2

¹ So Jared and his brother and their friends and families went to the north valley that was named after a great hunter called Nimrod. They took with them all the different kinds of flocks they had gathered together, both male and female.
² They also set traps and caught many different kinds of birds, and they made a tank to carry different kinds of fish with them.
³ They took many bees with them, and every kind of seed in the land.
⁴ When they got to the valley of Nimrod, the Lord came down and talked with Jared’s brother, but the Lord was hidden in a cloud, so Jared’s brother could not see him.
⁵ The Lord told them to go into the wilderness — into a land where people had never been before. The Lord went in front of them in a cloud, and told them which to travel.
⁶ So they traveled in the wilderness, and built barges to cross over a sea in the wilderness. The Lord told them where to go.
⁷ The Lord would not let them stop on the other side of that sea in the wilderness, because he wanted them to go to the promised land — the best land in all the world, and a land God had made for righteous people to live in.
⁸ When the Lord was angry with the people at the Tower of Babel, he promised Jared’s brother that whatever people came to this promised land would have to keep his commandments or be destroyed.
⁹ (And now we can see what God meant about this promised land — that whoever lives here must keep his commandments, or be destroyed by his anger when they become too wicked.
¹⁰ This land is the best and most beautiful land of all the lands on earth. Whoever lives here must serve God or be destroyed, because this is what God said. But he will not destroy them until they become completely wicked.
¹¹ I am writing this to you, O you Gentiles, so you will know what God has said about this land — so you will repent and stop doing evil things which will make you completely wicked, and so God will not destroy you as he has destroyed other people who have lived here before.
¹² This is a wonderful land, and the people who live here will not be slaves to any other nation, if only they will serve Jesus Christ, the God of this land about whom we have written.)
¹³ Now I will tell you more of that people’s history. After the Lord took Jared and his brother and their people to the great sea that divides the lands, they set up their tents by the sea for four years. And they called the place Moriancumer.
¹⁴ After four years went by, the Lord came again in a cloud to Jared’s brother, and talked to him for three hours, telling him to repent, because Jared’s brother had not remembered to pray to the Lord as he should.
¹⁵ Jared’s brother repented for not praying to the Lord, and he prayed to the Lord for his people. The Lord said to him: “I will forgive your sins, and I will forgive your people’s sins, but do not sin anymore, because my Spirit will not always work with you. If you keep on sinning, you will not live with me again. This is what I think about the promised land which I will give to you and your descendants, because it is the best and most beautiful land on the earth.”
¹⁶ Then the Lord said: “Go to work and build more barges like the ones you built before.” So Jared’s brother and his people built barges like the ones they had built before, the way the Lord had taught them to. The barges were small, and they floated just like a bird on the water.
¹⁷ They were built in a way to keep water out of them. The bottom was like a dish that could hold water, and the sides were like a dish, and so was the top. The ends of the barges were pointed. They were as long as trees are tall, and when their doors were shut, no water could get into them at all.
¹⁸ Then Jared’s brother prayed to the Lord and said: “O Lord, I have done what you told me to do, and built the barges the way you told me to.
¹⁹ “But, O Lord, there is no light in them, so how can we know which way to go? There is also no way for more air to get in them, so we will not be able to breathe. We will die if we travel in them.”
²⁰ The Lord said to Jared’s brother: “Cut a hole in both the top and bottom of each barge. When you need air, open up the top hole, and air will come in. But if water starts coming in, close the top so you will not drown.”
²¹ So Jared did what the Lord told him to do.
²² Then he prayed to the Lord again and said: “O Lord, I have done what you told me to, but there is still no light in them. O Lord, please do not make us cross this great sea in the dark.”
²³ And the Lord said to Jared’s brother: “What do you want me to do so you can have light in the barges? You cannot have windows, because they will get broken, and you cannot have light from fire, either.
²⁴ “You will travel like the whales do — sometimes under the big waves of water. I will make sure you do not stay under the water all the time, because I will stop the winds and the rains and the water at times so you can travel on top of the water, too.
²⁵ “You cannot cross this great sea unless you are protected from the winds and rain and the waters and waves by being underwater. So, what do you want me to do so you can have light when you are under the water?”