Jacob 6:3

~544–420 BC

1830 Edition

And how blessed are they who have labored diligently in his vineyard; and how cursed are they which shall be cast out into their own place! And the world shall be burned with fire.

Changes

And how blessed are they who have labored diligently in his vineyard; and how cursed are they whicho shall be cast out into their own place! And the world shall be burned with fire.

Simple English

Those who have worked hard in God’s garden are blessed. But those who are thrown out to their own place are cursed. The world will burn with fire.

Paraphrase

How blessed are those who have worked hard in his vineyard! And how cursed are those who get thrown out to face their own fate! The world will burn with fire.

Notes

6:1-13

In Jacob chapter 5 and 6, an allegory of the tame and wild olive trees is attributed to an ancient prophet named Zenos, who supposedly lived before Lehi’s journey to the New World. The allegory, however, closely mirrors material from multiple biblical sources: Apostle Paul’s discussion of olive trees in Romans 11:17–24, Jesus’ parable of the unfruitful fig tree in Luke 13:6–9, and imagery from Isaiah 5:1–7 concerning a vineyard. In the Book of Mormon, these sources are expanded into an allegory spanning over six pages. As Jerald and Sandra Tanner note, “It is probably the most repetitious part of the Book of Mormon. It gives the impression that the author is deliberately trying to use up as much space as possible. It is very hard to resist the idea that it is merely filler material." -Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Joseph Smith's Plagiarism of the Bible in the Book of Mormon, p. 165.

Similarly, Wesley P. Walters observes, “For a grand finale of his work, however, he returned to this olive tree illustration [given by Apostle Paul] and worked it into a mind-boggling allegory, combining it with Jesus' parable about the unfruitful fig tree (Lk. 13:6–8) and working in the words from Isaiah 5:1–5 about God's disappointment with his grape vineyard. The result is a staggering conglomeration that would perplex a horticulturalist and bewilder an exegete” -Wesley P. Walters, "The Use of the Old Testament in the Book of Mormon," (Master's thesis, St. Louis: Covenant Theological Seminary, April 1981), pp. 152-153.