Jacob — Chapter 4
1 I, Jacob, taught my people many things. I cannot write very many of the things I said to them because it is so hard to write on these metal plates. We know that everything we write on these plates will be saved.
2 But everything we don’t write on metal plates will be destroyed. We can write a little bit on plates like these, so our children, and our dear brothers and sisters (the Lamanites) will know a little bit about us and their ancestors.
3 This makes us happy, so we work very hard to write these important things on these plates. We hope our dear brothers and sisters and our descendants will be glad we did, and that they will be happy, not sad or angry, to learn about us (their first parents).
4 We have written these things so they will know that we knew about Christ and hoped in his glory hundreds of years before he came. Not only do we know about him, but all the holy prophets before us knew about him, too.
5 They believed in Christ and worshiped God the Father in his name, and that is how we worship, too. We keep the Law of Moses because it helps us remember him. It is a righteous thing for us to keep the Law in this way, just as it was a righteous thing for Abraham to obey God when he was told to sacrifice his son Isaac, because it helped him understand what would happen with God and his Only Begotten Son.
6 So we study the scriptures, and we have many revelations and the spirit of prophecy. All these things give us hope, and make our faith so strong that we can make trees and mountains and the waves of the sea obey us in Jesus’ name.
7 But God also shows us that we are weak, and it is only because of his grace and great kindness that we can have the power to do these things.
8 The things the Lord can do are very great, and we cannot begin to understand how he does them! People cannot know about all God can do unless God tells them; so, brothers and sisters, study God’s revelations.
9 His power put people on earth, and his power made the earth. If God was able to make the earth just by saying a word, and to make people the same way, he can also make the earth and everything on it do what he wants.
10 So, brothers and sisters, don’t tell the Lord what to do, but listen to what he tells you to do. You yourselves know that he tells you what you should do because he is wise and fair and merciful about everything.
11 So do what God says, and come to him through Christ’s sacrifice, so you will live again with God because of your hope and faith in Christ, even before he comes to earth.
12 Dear friends, do not be surprised that I am telling you this. Why shouldn’t we talk about Christ’s sacrifice, and learn everything we can about him, and learn that we will live again in a better world because of him?
13 Brothers and sisters, whoever prophesies should do so in a way that other people can understand, because the Spirit tells the truth and does not lie. The Spirit talks about things as they really are, and about how they really will be. It has told us about these things very plainly so we can be saved. We are not the only ones who have known these things, because God told the same things to the prophets in olden times.
14 But the Jews were very stubborn, and they did not like to hear things that were plain and easy to understand. They killed the prophets and tried to learn about things that would not save them. So because of their blindness (which came from looking past the truth), they will fall. God has stopped talking to them plainly and has given them things that are very hard to understand instead — because that is what they wanted. Now they make many mistakes.
15 Now I, Jacob, will prophesy because of the Spirit which is in me: I tell you that because of the Jews’ mistakes, they will not believe in Jesus when he comes, nor in his gospel.
16 But the scriptures say that Jesus and his gospel are the only way the Jews can be saved and be happy.
17 Now, dear friends, how can the Jews ever understand and live the gospel, once they have not believed in Jesus?
18 Dear brothers and sisters, I will tell you how this will happen, if I can listen to the Spirit and not make any mistakes because of how worried I am about you.
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