The Sealed Book from the Mormon Plates

Acts of the Three Nephites

CHAPTER 14

11-20

 

11 The original olive tree, therefore, had grown old in its customs and traditions, and even though the streams of dirty water were mixed with clean waters, that is to say, feelings of all kinds, coming from both sides, its roots were fed in such a way that its dirt appears in the fruits and also in its trunk, just above the earth, which prefigures the human heart; and thus, the sap of its essence was lost, because of these precepts of the enemy, as being a plague infesting its inner structure.

 

12 But behold, the Lord of the vineyard saw that his olive tree was beginning to wither, and so he cut down all his wild branches, yea, the people who affected the people of Israel with their feelings contaminated by the filth of Satan and his grumbling infecting all the nation of Israel in the days of Moses.

 

13 When then they were in the wilderness of their afflictions, and God took from the midst of his people the wild branches, thus pruning his good olive tree and digging about so that the good water, coming from its clear spring, descended to its roots again, so as to make their fruits pure and desirable for themselves, and began to care for them in the hope of sprouting new and tender branches so that they produce good fruit in the next season, that is, new people in the next generation, and so it was, according to your words1.

(1) RLDS Jacob 3:30-32 / LDS Jacob 5:1-4

 

14 And after much time had passed, small and new branches began to sprout, who were the lesser prophets that arose between the nation of Israel and those who listened to his words and the law of Moses.

 

15 But, behold, his feelings were still tender, while the canopy of the olive, which foreshadowed the nation's leaders in their entirety, was dying, in the sense that none of the priests were pure enough to the Lord of the vineyard, languishing the highest part of the good olive tree. Then the owner of the vineyard said to his servant that it is painful to think that this dedicated generation of new branches, which is still tender, while the canopy of my olive tree perishes and will not have strength in itself to keep my fruits in the good olive tree that I took care of so much, all these days.

(1) RLDS Jacob 3:34 / LDS Jacob 5:6

 

16 It happened then that the Babylonians came, like branches of a wild olive tree to be grafted among the nation of Israel, for how much the main branches that were beginning to dry up were destroyed by the fire when the King of Babylon took captive many of the new and tender branches in order to graft them, according to the words of the Lord of the vineyard; "and I will graft them whithersoever I will;" for though the nation of Babylon will perish, as it were prophesied, the owner of the vineyard should preserve its fruit from the mixture of races that would occur between the Jews and the Gentiles. Therefore they were captives of this nation to fulfill the purpose of the Lord of the vineyard, to take from among the nations of the earth some new and tender branches of the house of Jacob, and to graft them where it should be.

(1) RLDS Jacob 3:35-42 / LDS Jacob 5:7-10

 

17 And it came to pass in the days of those kings that Daniel, the Servant of the Lord, became master of the magicians-astrologers1 from the east, and came to teach his princes and noble confederates and vassals, among whom were many Jews, which have passed their knowledge for your children, spreading from generation to generation their knowledge of astrology even among the many synagogues that were erected in the land of the East, when then the Lord of the vineyard went to hide the natural branches of the good olive tree in the nethermost parts of the vineyard, some in one part, others in another, spreading these apprentices of the wisdom of Daniel the prophet according to his pleasure and will2.

(1) Daniel 1:20; 4:9 | (2) RLDS Jacob 3:48 / LDS Jacob 5:14

 

18 And it came to pass that a long time went by, and the Lord of the vineyard said unto his servant, come, let us go to the vineyard to work on it. And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard, and also the servant, went down into the vineyard to work1. It was when the words of Isaiah, both recited and researched in the East, were fulfilled through teaching propagated by Belteshazzar in the wisdom schools of Babylon, where they studied the scriptures with all peoples in relation to the “future descendant”; and up until even among the instructed rabbis of the Hebrew people in their respective synagogues, in the distant lands of Israel.

(1) RLDS Jacob 3:49-51 / LDS Jacob 5:15-16

 

19 Which had been grafted into the wild olive tree, and for this reason, they learned to map the heavens, so that they could identify that star that had been foretold by the prophets that does not belong to the starry skies, for how much its manifestation in the night sky would foreshadow the birth of the 'promised descendant' among men on earth.

 

20 These, then, were the natural branches of the good olive tree in a foreign land, and so did those branches of the olive tree that were brought and grafted into the good olive tree; all have borne fruit in their respective station, and have mingled together.