1 Nephi 19

After arriving in the promised land, God commanded me to engrave two sets of plates to pass on to my descendants. The first set concerned my father’s genealogy, the story of our travels in the wilderness, a detailed account of the wars, conflicts, and past destructions of our people, and the many prophecies of my father and me. These, the second set of engraved plates, are intended to be an ongoing sacred record of our people. They are meant to be handed down from generation to generation, from one prophet to another, and added to until God commands otherwise. Accordingly, I don’t write anything upon these plate except what is sacred. Some people will consider these records of priceless value, while others may consider them to be worthless. Some people even consider God’s word to have no value, and don’t listen to what he says.

The angel who spoke to me said that in six hundred years the God of the Jewish people will be born as a mortal man, rejected, suffered, and abused. The Old World prophets Zenock, Neum, and Zenos say that he will be crucified, buried in a sepulcher, and lifted up afterwards.

Zenos prophesied that three days of darkness would be the sign of the Messiah’s death to the family of Israel who live beyond the sea. He says, “The Lord God will surely visit all the family of Israel on that day. Some will hear his voice because of their righteousness. Others will see the thunder and lightning of his power in the form of great storms, fire, smoke, darkness, the earth splitting, and the lifting up of mountains. As the rocks break and the earth groans the Spirit of God will fall upon the kings across the seas. ‘The God of nature suffers,’ they will exclaim.

“The people of Jerusalem and their descendants will be punished and plagued by all people for turning their hearts aside, rejecting the signs and wonders, and crucifying the God of Israel. Because of this they will be forced to wander the world and be despised among all nations. When the day comes that these people have a change of heart, God will again remember the promises he made to their ancestors. He will also remember his people across the seas who are descendants of Israel. ‘I will gather them in,’ said God, ‘from the four corners of the earth.’ All the people of earth will see the salvation of God, and be blessed.”

I write all of this to remind my people to remember their God. I write this also to all the descendants of Israel who have been scattered.

My spirit is weakened by the knowledge of those who were left behind in Jerusalem. If God had not been merciful to us and shown us the way, as he also showed the way to the ancient prophets, we too would have perished. I am thankful for what I have learned about the ancient prophets from the brass plates we brought with us. I have shared the knowledge from the brass plates with my brothers and I have taught them about the ways in which God has delivered his blessings and his anger upon people in the past.

I have attempted to convince my brothers of the importance of believing in God by reading to them from the books of Moses. In order to help them understand Jesus Christ, I have taught them about Isaiah and asked them to apply his prophecies and lessons [from 720 BC] to our own lives and circumstances now, on this new continent [588 BC].

“Listen to the words of the prophet, Isaiah,” I said to them. “We are broken branches from the tree that is the family of Israel. Isaiah speaks to us of hope, as well as to our brothers who have been left behind.”