I will Go! I will Do!

The First Book of Nephi

Chapter 4


My brothers continued to murmur.

We had just seen an angel and they were murmuring!

"Let's go back to Jerusalem!" I told them. "Let's be faithful to God's commandments! He is mightier than the whole Earth! Why wouldn't he be mightier than Laban and his fifty men? Let's go up. Let's be like Moses! He spoke to the Red Sea and led our ancestors through on dry ground and the armies of Pharoah were drowned. You know this is true! An angel spoke to you! Why do you doubt? The Lord is able to deliver us, just as He saved our fathers, and destroy Laban, just like He did the Egyptians."

They had no argument, but they were still angry with me and murmured.
They did follow me back up to Jerusalem, though.

I left them outside the city walls and went into the city by myself. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I trusted that the Spirit would guide me, and he did. As I headed towards Laban's house I found a man passed out in the street from drinking so much wine. As I came closer, I saw that it was Laban.

The Spirit constrained me to kill him, and the instruction shocked me. I had never killed a man before. I may have been large in stature, but I was still young. I stepped away, not wanting to kill him.

The Spirit prompted me again, and said "The Lord has delivered him into thy hands. He had sought to take away your life and the lives of your brethren. He does not keep the commandments and took away your property." And he again commanded me to slay him, and then added "Behold the Lord slayeth the wicked to bring forth his righteous purposes. It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief."

When I heard hose words, I was reminded of the promise The Lord gave me in the wilderness, that as my seed follows the commandments, then they will prosper in the land. They couldn't keep the commandments if they didn't know what they were, and I knew that the law was written on the brass plates.

And so, I obeyed the promptings of the Spirit and killed Laban, and put on his clothes and took his sword. I went to Laban's treasury, and I ran into one of his servants, but he thought I was Laban, since I was dressed as him, and so I commanded him, in the voice of Laban, to get the brass plates. As we walked together, the servant talked about the elders of the Jews, because that was who Laban had been with that night, and I talked as if I was Laban. We found the plates in the treasury, and I told him that we would carry the plates to my elder brethren outside the city walls, and the servant thought I was talking about the brethren of the church, and I asked him to come with me and he did, still thinking that I was Laban.

When my brothers saw me, they thought I was Laban coming to kill them, and they started to run away, but I called them back, and they saw that it was really me. But now the servant was scared and was about to run away, but I was large in stature, and God had given me a lot of strength, and so I grabbed him and held him so he couldn't flee.

I told him that if he listened to us and did what we told him, then I would spare his life. I made an oath that he would be a free man if he came to the wilderness with us. I also said, "The Lord commanded us to do this. Shouldn't we be diligent in keeping the commandments? If you will come down to he wilderness with us, my father will have a place for you."

The servant's name was Zoram, and he decided to come with us, and made a promise that he would continue to travel with us so that the people of Jerusalem wouldn't know about our journey, so that they wouldn't come after us to destroy us.

And so we started our journey back to my father's tents.

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