Post by Laman –
This is Laman, I will be taking over the blog now. Nephi finally went too far. Our father commanded us to go back to Jerusalem to bring back some women and we were told to try Ishmael’s family first, not a totally bad choice. Ishmael was certainly more receptive to our requests than was Laban. Maybe he was afraid that Nephi would cut off his head if he didn’t get his family out of Jerusalem. Nephi used the Lord as a negotiating tool claiming that all this was the Lord’s will, and that if they stayed they would be destroyed along with the rest of Jerusalem and on and on.
I think Ishmael agreed to come out of fear, not out of persuasion of the Spirit of the Lord as Nephi claimed. I can’t help but think that his daughters had something to do with the decision. Lemuel and I are not of small reputation among the ladies in Jerusalem. Sam, though not obnoxious like Nephi, is a pretty fine man in his own right, for a little brother that is.
After Ishmael had gathered up his household, they joined us in our journey back into the wilderness. On our way, we all decided that the wilderness really wasn’t the place we wanted to be. So we turned back.
You can imagine how this made Nephi go crazy. He pretends to be all grieved and motivated by love and concern for our eternal souls. He is really just a delusional kid, brainwashed by our visionary father.
Well, Nephi set off with his typical ranting –
“You are the older brothers, why are your hearts so hard?”
“Why are your minds so blind?”
“Why don’t you hearken to the word of the Lord?”
“How can you forget you saw an angel of the Lord?”
“Why do I, the younger brother have to set the example?”
“How can you set aside the great things the Lord has done for us, in delivering us out of the hands of Laban, and also helping us obtain the record?”
“How have you forgotten that the Lord is able to do all things according to his will, for the children of men, if we only exercise faith in him?”
Then Nephi’s typical punch line – “Wherefore, let us be faithful to him.”
We were unpersuaded so he went on with the Land of Promise nonsense and the destruction of Jerusalem garbage about how they lost the spirit and how Jeremiah was now in prison and they had tried to kill our father and how if we go back we will be destroyed along with our friends.
Then he threw out the final insult telling us that we had a choice, but if we went back, we better remember that he told us so when we were being destroyed.
That was it. The last straw. Now we were angry, and justifiably so. Yet Nephi had a few converts out of all his blathering on. It was me and Lemuel, two of Ishmael’s daughters, two of his sons and their families against Nephi, Sam, Ishmael and his wife and his three other daughters.
We would never have peace and be able to return to Jerusalem with Nephi around. So we did what we should have done a long time ago. We took him and tied him up and left him behind in the wilderness. Hopefully the wild beasts will take care of him for us – once and for all.
(Book of Mormon | 1 Nephi 7:4 – 16)
