3 Nephi 10

Silence After the Voice

Everyone across the land heard that voice and knew what it meant. After the voice finished speaking, silence fell over the land for hours. The people were so shaken that they stopped crying and wailing for their lost loved ones. Total silence—for hours.

Then the voice came again. Everyone heard it:

The Voice Speaks Again

'You people of these fallen cities—descendants of Jacob, children of Israel—how many times have I gathered you like a hen gathers her chicks under her wings? How often have I cared for you and protected you?' 'How many times have I tried to gather you, the way a hen gathers her chicks beneath her wings? You people of Israel who have fallen, you who lived in Jerusalem and are now destroyed—how often I wanted to gather you, but you refused me.' 'You people of Israel whom I’ve spared—I will still gather you like a hen gathers her chicks if you’ll turn back to me with your whole heart.' 'But if you won’t, your homes will lie empty and ruined until the time comes when I fulfill the covenant I made with your ancestors.'

After hearing this, the people began weeping and crying out again, mourning their lost families and friends.

The Darkness Lifts

Three days passed like this. Then, one morning, the darkness lifted. The earth stopped shaking. The rocks stopped splitting apart. The terrible groaning sounds stopped. All the chaos finally ended. The earth’s wounds closed up and the ground became solid again. The survivors stopped their mourning and weeping. Their grief turned to joy. Their cries of sorrow became songs of praise and thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ, their Redeemer.

Everything the prophets had spoken about had come true.

Who Was Saved and Why

The people who survived were the more righteous ones—those who had listened to the prophets instead of killing them, those who hadn’t murdered the faithful believers. They were spared. They weren’t swallowed by the earth. They didn’t drown in the sea. They weren’t burned alive. They weren’t crushed by falling rocks. They weren’t swept away by whirlwinds or suffocated by smoke and darkness.

Let anyone reading this understand: go search the scriptures. Look and see whether all these deaths and destructions—by fire, by smoke, by storms, by whirlwinds, by the earth opening up to swallow people—weren’t exactly what the holy prophets predicted would happen.

Many prophets spoke about what would happen when Christ came. They were killed for saying these things. The prophet Zenos spoke about these things. So did Zenock. They spoke specifically about us—the remnant of their descendants. Our ancestor Jacob also spoke about the remnant of Joseph’s descendants. Aren’t we part of Joseph’s family line? Aren’t these prophecies about us written on the brass plates that our ancestor Lehi brought out of Jerusalem?

Christ Will Come

As the thirty-fourth year ended, something remarkable happened to the Nephites who survived and to those who had been called Lamanites who also survived. God showed them extraordinary favor and poured out tremendous blessings on them. Soon after Christ ascended into heaven, he actually appeared to them. He showed them his body and ministered to them. I’ll give a full account of what he did later. For now, I’m ending this part of my record.