2 Nephi 5

Believe me, I prayed harder than I’d ever prayed because my brothers were loose now that Dad was dead. They wanted to kill me and they let me know it. They said I wanted to take over Dad’s job and run their lives—though he obviously never had—and they thought that by right they deserved to run the show. Some of their language I won’t repeat. It would burn the patina right off these plates.

So God told me I should run away from camp, inviting anyone who wanted to go with me to do so. Did I tell you my brothers were trying to kill me? Ooooh yeah.

I took my wife and kids, Sam and his family, Jacob and Joseph, my sisters. They believed I had the pipeline to God and thought the price for being with me was to stop sinning. We took our tents, then, and it was back to the grind, slogging away for days like we knew where we were going, which we didn’t. But we’d all learned how to do this and precious little else, except have visions about the next stop. And putting up and taking down tents.

We finally found a decent spot and pitched those tents at a place I only half-reluctantly, at others’ request, called “Nephi.” And my entourage started calling themselves “Nephi’s people,” though it was never clear if that meant my people or just the people of this place. Maybe that was why they came up with the place name: to mess with my head.

We kept the law of Moses quite orthodoxly and made good with what we had. We planted and reaped unbelievably well. We bred all kinds of livestock. We did get a little cultish, I guess, partly because I had the brass plates and the compass, which we venerated. But you can’t argue with results. And we were multiplying like crazy.

I had Laban’s sword as well, another sacred relic, and used its design and craftsmanship as a template. You might ask why. You see, my brothers and their families were still within earshot. They hated me and mine and I had to make sure we had weapons. You never know.

I taught everybody that they should build buildings, though we had to improvise on the blueprints. I also taught that we needed to make good use of the assorted metals we were finding all around, even without mining. Maybe they were left by some previous tenants.

We even built a modest temple that I told people was like Solomon’s, though, let’s face it, it wasn’t really anything like it. Still, we did everything we could to detail the thing with fine wood-and metal-work. This was all part of my “jobs plan,” to keep people working, mostly in manual labor. That helps people focus and gives everyone the fruits of shared effort.

Many people wanted me to be king, but I wasn’t biting. A horrible idea, both for me and for them. But I still managed to act despotically. Benevolent-despotically, of course. What pleased me, though, was that that old prediction came true: I was the leader and in some ways “ruled over” my rival siblings.

You see, God had cursed them. It was obvious. Their skin was turning dark. I didn’t know what to make of this. But even in Jerusalem we’d learned that the darker the skin the darker the heart. I know that’s not fashionable talk now. But hey, that’s how we were raised. They used to be fair-skinned like us. Now they looked as if they’d been raised on the other side of the tracks.

I feel bad now that we saddled God with our distaste for their new “look.” But it was a way of controlling our behavior: black is bad, it seemed to say. A big systemic turn-off, which God would reverse if they repented. Until he did, don’t intermarry. The curse will attach to those who do.

That curse of dark skin was probably worsened by the long hours they spent in the wilds hunting. Though mostly they sat around a lot—ingesting the local herbs, no doubt—and hatching schemes to make life miserable for us. They’re going to screw up your history, God told me, but in a good way: “They’ll remind your descendants how awful it would be to be like them. And if they hunt your descendants down and kill them, it only means all concerned should have repented sooner. That’s just the kind of God I am.”

Okay, back to my story. I set apart my younger brothers, Jacob and Joseph, to be all-community priests and teachers. And from then on we lived more or less happily, as we’d done for a while now. (This was thirty years after we’d left Jerusalem. So you see how far I’ve jumped ahead.)

Another reminder: if you want detailed history of my time, you’ll have to go to the larger plates I made and inscribed. I keep saying that. Sorry.

I’m going to skip ahead ten more years, i.e., forty years since we left Jerusalem. In that time we had some small wars with the Lamanites.