The Sealed Book from the Mormon Plates

Acts of the Three Nephites

CHAPTER 4

1 And it came to pass, when we returned among those who are of our people, because they began to be proud, that we ministered among them until the days when Ammoron, the brother of Amos, which were the sons of Amos my brother; yea, the one who replaced my father, Nephi, among the twelve disciples, when he took the leadership of the church among the Nephites.

2 And among them we remain again until the days when Ammoron hid the records that were sacred, three hundred and twenty years after the coming of Christ among the Nephites1. It was then, in this year, that the Lord removed us again from the midst of this people2 and led us to a distant land to minister among the Jews and proselytes Gentiles. Five years after we were taken away again from this people, the Lord appeared to Mormon, when he was fifteen years old, for the purpose of to prepare to obtain these sacred records of the people of Nephi entrusted out to him by this same Ammoron, of whom I spoke earlier. (1) RLDS 4Nephi 1:5 / LDS 4Nephi 1:4 | (2) RLDS Mormon 1:14-15 / LDS Mormon 1:13-14

3 After some time, being ministering among the Jews and Gentile proselytes both in Jerusalem and in all parts of Asia, we were caught up from that place and reallocated again among this Nephite people. It was when we ministered among our brethren again and in the course these days I began to write this record that we were required to do, and the other two disciples who have accompanied me since then let me write our acts among the people of Christ1. — That we should go out on the face of the
earth, ministering among all people; yea, among the Gentiles and also among the Jews by virtue of the convincing power of God, who is with us. (1) RLDS 3Nephi 13:29-30 / LDS 3Nephi 28:18

4 In the course of these years when we, the three disciples, remain among our own people again, behold, we minister to Mormon and his son Moroni1, for the benefit of the records entrusted to him to compile on plates, for how much these records which I, Jonah, one of the three disciples of the Lord, was commissioned to do, which bears the name “Acts of the three Nephites2” and also of a second record which my father Nephi wrote by request of the Lord as being the book of the “Prophecies of Samuel the Lamanite3”; and also the record I mentioned earlier on the “Revelations of John4”, written by me, Jonah, with aid of the other two disciples, concerning what we have seen and heard when we were caught up.

(1) RLDS Mormon 4:12-15 / LDS Mormon 8:10-12 | (2) RLDS 3Nephi 13:29-30 / LDS 3Nephi 28:18 | (3) RLDS 3Nephi 10:34-41 / LDS 3Nephi 23:7-13 | (4) RLDS Ether 1:113-114; 1Nephi 3:238 -251 / LDS Ether
4:16-17; 1Nephi 14:18-27

5 These records, which I am referring to, were written by me and my father on scrolls of hides, which I delivered into the hands of Mormon at the time we ministered to him and his son Moroni1, so that Mormon would transcribe them on the plates that were compiling and finally sealing its contents along with other records required by the Lord for a wise future purpose in which we will return and minister together to the one who goes to read these records in the fulness of times. (1) RLDS Mormon 4:12-15 / LDS Mormon 8:10-12