After 2 Nephi ends, the next few books are fairly short. The Book of Jacob, written by Nephi's younger brother Jacob, is only 7 chapters long (although chapter 5 is one of the longest in the entire Book of Mormon); and the Books of Enos, Jarom, and Omni are each only 1 chapter long.
THE BOOK OF JACOB
I am going to summarize chapters 1 – 4, and then dedicate an entire post to chapter 5.
· Jacob and his brother Joseph teach the people about Christ, but they start becoming wicked anyways. I really liked some of the verses in this chapter, including:
o Jacob 1:6-8 : “We knew of Christ and his kingdom, which should come. Wherefore we labored diligently among our people, that we might persuade them to come unto Christ, and partake of the goodness of God, that they might enter into his rest, lest by any means he should swear in his wrath they should not enter in, as in the provocation in the days of temptation while the children of Israel were in the wilderness. Wherefore, we would to God that we could persuade all men not to rebel against God, to provoke him to anger, but that all men would believe in Christ, and view his death, and suffer his crass and bear the shame of the world”
o Jacob 1:17 : “Wherefore, I… taught them… having first obtained mine errand from the Lord.” I thought that this verse really applied to me, especially after I got my mission call. My errand from the Lord is to teach His Children in Honduras!
· Jacob then takes a few chapters to preach to the people, and hopefully get them to repent. He says, “Yea, it grieveth my soul and causeth me to shrink with shame before the presence of my Maker, that I must testify unto you concerning the wickedness of your hearts.” He is not even talking about sins that have been committed (yet), but he is preempting things that the Lord has warned him are in the hearts of the people, that they might/will commit in the future.
o Some of the things that Jacob talks to the people about are greed, pride, and especially unchastity
§ Jacob teaches that, “Before ye seek for riches, seek ye for the kingdom of God.”
§ He also says that the Lord, “delight(s) is the chastity of women. And whoredoms are an abomination before me; thus saith the Lord of Hosts.”
· “For behold, I, the Lord, have seen the sorrow, and heard the mourning of the daughters of my people… And I will not suffer… that the cries of the fair daughters of this people… shall come up unto me against the men of my people.
· Jacob then spends a few verses talking to the people in his flock who are doing the things that they are supposed to. He says, “Look unto God with firmness of mind, and pray unto him with exceeding faith, and he will console you in your afflictions, and he will plead your cause… lift up your heads and receive the pleasing word of God, and feast upon his love, for ye may, if your minds are firm, forever.”
· Jacob uses chapter 4 to teach about the knowledge that his people have of Christ, and the knowledge that the more ancient prophets did as well. Some of the verses I liked most include:
o Jacob 4:4 : “For, for this intent have we written these things, that they may know that we knew of Christ, and we had a hope of his glory many hundred years before his coming; and not only we ourselves had a hope of his glory, but also the holy prophets which were before us.”
o Jacob 4:12-13 : “Why not speak of the atonement of Christ, and attain to a perfect knowledge of him, as to attain to the knowledge of a resurrection and the world to come? Behold my brethren, he that prophesieth, let him prophesy to the understanding of men; for the Spirit speaketh the truth and lieth not. Wherefore it speaketh of things as they really are, and of things as they really will be; wherefore, these things are manifested unto us plainly, for the salvation of our souls. But behold, we are not witnesses alone in these things; for God also spake them unto prophets of old.”
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