3 Nephi 9

A voice boomed in the ears of every survivor. They all remembered it the same. So I can quote it here:

Curse you people. From Nephites to every Jew and Gentile on the planet, curse you for not fixing your malicious lives. Hear that? That’s the devil laughing in the distance—distance because once he ties you up he walks away. That tittering is his demon kids joking about the latest crop of the dead. Sick, as usual.

But I myself leveled Zarahemla and torched its people. I drowned Moroni and its people. I dumped landfill on Moronihah, simply to stop myself from having to look at that city anymore. The blood of my best friends, all prophets, was screaming from the ground. I stopped up my ears and the earth twisted on its axis.

I’m behind so many other destructions of late:

I drowned Gilgal. Onihah, Mocum, Jerusalem the same. I love a good flood. Always have. You wouldn’t think it, but water blocks so many things.

As for Gadiandi, Gadiomnah, Jacob, Gimgimno, I buried them. Earth, soil, the sequel to water. Same inclination on my part, same effect. Just different material.

For the city Jacobugath (Jacob’s Gadianton stronghold), I turned from earth and water to fire—I always like to balance the elements, even when decimating. Since these folks liked their secret deals, I wanted something that could be seen for miles. I used the same method with the cities of Laman, Josh, Gad, and Kishkumen. They stoned my advance team; I hate regret that form of execution and to apply it to my friends was intolerable. So I burned the stoners to death.

There was lots of, as they say, collateral damage. But reprisal is always worse than messy.

(By the way, if you’re wondering about death by air, after the other elements had their due, I used it in those ghastly storms. Everyone got some of it.)

I always tried to skirt around the more righteous pockets of citizens when I could. If you’re one of them, I have news: you still fall short. Far short. Did you get my warning?

I am still the God of mercy, however conflicted. My welcoming arms are still stretched out. Come to me, being genuine and honest about it, and I’ll heal you and favor you. Instead of savage death, I offer eternal life, well beyond the confines of your lovely, but flawed and transient continent.

Who am I? Specifically, I am Jesus Christ, about whom you’ve heard so much, I’m sure. I built the cosmos, alongside the Father, who is in me and vice versa—we often get confused for one another. I’m so intertwined with him and his ways that I get overzealous sometimes, I fear. Hence the recent rabid attacks.

I arrived in the other hemisphere—don’t worry, I’ll explain that in 1400 years or so—and was summarily brutalized. Not by everyone, not by a long stretch. But by enough, and of the right people, that I didn’t make it past 33.

I did what I was supposed to and that’s all anyone can do. But anyone who believes in me at this point will have the chance to become as close to the Father as I am.

As for that Law of Moses you’ve been wrestling with for centuries, I’ve now officially fulfilled it. That has to be good news.

I am the light of the world. And all recent evidence to the contrary, I am the life of the world. In Greek they call me “Alpha and Omega,” the first and last letters of the alphabet. Those Greeks. Just call me the beginning and the end. You’ve seen the end of your civilization as you knew it. Now it’s time for a beginning. That’s often how beginnings work, leap-frogging over a bad end.

Take the Law of Moses. All that stabbing of innocent lambs, and goat throat-splitting, burning up and eating the evidence, etc. That’s over. I really dislike it.

The new sacrifice is: your broken hearts (which I’ve helped with so drastically in recent days) and a spirit determined to pick up the pieces and rebuild by correct plans.

Look to the Lamanites at their best. They got it. They got outwardly baptized with water and I returned the favor by baptizing them inwardly with unearthly warmth. That’s how my Spirit feels. They didn’t know what was going on. But you have to cut them some slack. Because, actually, they were way ahead of you.

I aim to brush up what’s left of this world, restyling it in the form of gracious curves, the easy flow of the cosmos I and my Father are justly proud of, not the jagged misshapenness of our enemy, who I won’t dignify by repeating his her name.

Start over like children. I’ll teach you to walk. Walk where? Right into my house, where you’ll be amazingly happy for all time and actually the elapsing of time, because the perception of time is a very human construct that actually depends on … Oh never mind.