But behold, I, Jacob, would speak unto you that are pure in heart. Look unto God with firmness of mind, and pray unto him with exceeding faith, and he will console you in your afflictions, and he will plead your cause, and send down justice upon those who seek your destruction.
O all ye that are pure in heart, lift up your heads and receive the pleasing word of God, and feast upon his love; for ye may, if your minds are firm, forever.
But, wo, wo, unto you that are not pure in heart; that are filthy this day before God; for except ye shall repent, the land is cursed for your sakes; and the Lamanites, which are not filthy like unto you, (nevertheless, they are cursed with a sore cursing) shall scourge you even unto destruction.
And the time speedily cometh, that except ye repent, they shall possess the land of your inheritance, and the Lord God will lead away the righteous out from among you.
Behold, the Lamanites your brethren, whom ye hate, because of their filthiness and the cursings which hath come upon their skins, are more righteous than you; for they have not forgotten the commandment of the Lord, which was given unto our fathers, that they should have, save it were one wife; and concubines they should have none; and there should not be whoredoms committed among them.
And now this commandment they observe to keep; wherefore, because of this observance in keeping this commandment, the Lord God will not destroy them, but will be merciful unto them; and one day they shall become a blessed people.
Behold, their husbands love their wives, and their wives love their husbands, and their husbands and their wives love their children; and their unbelief and their hatred towards you, is because of the iniquity of their fathers; wherefore, how much better are you than they, in the sight of your Great Creator?
O my brethren, I fear, that unless ye shall repent of your sins, that their skins will be whiter than yours, when ye shall be brought with them before the throne of God.
Wherefore, a commandment I give unto you, which is the word of God, that ye revile no more against them, because of the darkness of their skins; neither shall ye revile against them because of their filthiness; but ye shall remember your own filthiness, and remember that their filthiness came because of their fathers.
Wherefore, ye shall remember your children, how that ye have grieved their hearts, because of the example that ye have set before them; and also, remember that ye may, because of your filthiness, bring your children unto destruction, and their sins be heaped upon your heads at the last day.
O my brethren, hearken unto my word; arouse the faculties of your soul; shake yourselves, that ye may awake from the slumber of death; and loose yourselves from the pains of hell, that ye may not become Angels to the Devil, to be cast into that lake of fire and brimstone, which is the second death.
And now I, Jacob, spake many more things unto the people of Nephi, warning them against fornication, and lasciviousness, and every kind of sin, telling them the awful consequences of them;
and a hundredth part of the proceedings of this people, which now began to be numerous, cannot be written upon these plates; but many of their proceedings are written upon the larger plates, and their wars, and their contentions, and the reigns of their kings.
These plates are called the plates of Jacob; and they were made by the hand of Nephi. And I make an end of speaking these words.
Influences
- 3:4 — John 16:2 (KJV)They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.
- 3:9 — Ephesians 6:17 (KJV)And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:
- 3:11 — Revelation 21:8 (KJV)But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.
- 3:11 — Revelation 21:8 (KJV)But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.
- 3:12 — 2 Corinthians 12:21 (KJV)And lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and that I shall bewail many which have sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed.
Notes
- 3:8-9
The 1830 edition of 2 Nephi 30:6 read, “shall be a white and delightsome people.” In 1840, this wording was changed to “shall be a pure and a delightsome people.” However, in 1841 the text was reverted back to “white and delightsome.” It was not changed again to “pure and delightsome” until 1981—three years after the 1978 lifting of the priesthood ban.
Although many Latter-day Saints argue that “white” should be understood metaphorically as referring to righteousness or purity rather than race or ethnicity, statements from LDS leaders leave little ambiguity about how these passages were historically interpreted. Here are just a few statements from LDS authorities:
“You may inquire of the intelligent of the world whether they can tell why the aborigines of this country are dark, loathsome, ignorant, and sunken into the depths of degradation …When the Lord has a people, he makes covenants with them and gives unto them promises: then, if they transgress his law, change his ordinances, and break his covenants he has made with them, he will put a mark upon them, as in the case of the Lamanites and other portions of the house of Israel; but by-and-by they will become a white and delightsome people” (Journal of Discourses 7:336).
At the October 1960 LDS Church Conference, Spencer Kimball utilized 2 Nephi 30:6 when he stated how the Indians “are fast becoming a white and delightsome people.” He said,
“The [Indian] children in the home placement program in Utah are often lighter than their brothers and sisters in the hogans on the reservation” (Improvement Era, December 1960, pp. 922-3).
During the same message Kimball referred to a 16-year-old Indian girl who was both LDS and “several shades lighter than her parents…” He went on to say,
“These young members of the Church are changing to whiteness and to delightsomeness. One white elder jokingly said that he and his companion were donating blood regularly to the hospital in the hope that the process might be accelerated.”
Elder Eugene J. Neff, in a 1927 conference message claimed, “The first missionaries went from this section around to another little town on the east side of the island, and there they gathered in a grass hut one hundred people to hear the message of these strange white men, As they all sat around the mat and heard the voice of this missionary from Utah, they were transfigured before George Q. Cannon, and he saw ninety-seven of them become white, and three of them remained dark. He did not understand. He did not know why it was that three of them would remain dark and all the rest should become light. He received a partial answer to this manifestation when it was learned that ninety-seven of those people in meeting at this time joined the Church, became devout members, lived and died Latter-day Saints, while three of them never did. It is said that they will become a white and delightsome people. They are delightsome at present, and I believe they are going to become white. They are growing whiter from year to year. I have said to myself and to some of my intimate friends that I thought the Hawaiian people would become white and delightsome, through intermarriage. I do not know whether that is according to the doctrines of the Church or not, but they have married the oriental races and married white people on the islands to such an extent that today there are more half casts than there are pure Hawaiians” (Conference Report, April 1927, p.49).
The Juvenile Instructor (26:635) reads, “From this it is very clear that the mark which was set upon the descendants of Cain was a skin of blackness, and there can be no doubt that this was the mark that Cain himself received; in fact, it has been noticed in our day that men who have lost the spirit of the Lord, and from whom his blessings have been withdrawn, have turned dark to such an extend as to excite the comments of all who have known them.”
See also 2 Nephi 5:21; 2 Nephi 30:6; 3 Nephi 2:15-16; Jacob 3:8-9; Alma 3:6.