46 Prepare your souls for that glorious day when justice
shall be administered unto the righteous, even the day of judgment, that ye may
not shrink with awful fear; that ye may not remember your awful guilt in
perfectness, and be constrained to exclaim: Holy, holy are thy judgments, O
Lord God Almighty—but I know my guilt; I transgressed thy law, and my
transgressions are mine; and the devil hath obtained me, that I am a prey to
his awful misery.
47 But behold, my brethren, is it expedient that I should
awake you to an awful reality of these things? Would I harrow up your souls if
your minds were pure? Would I be plain unto you according to the plainness of
the truth if ye were freed from sin?
48 Behold, if ye were holy I would speak unto you of holiness;
but as ye are not holy, and ye look upon me as a teacher, it must needs be
expedient that I teach you the consequences of sin.
49 Behold, my soul abhorreth sin, and my heart delighteth
in righteousness; and I will praise the holy name of my God.
50 Come, my brethren, every one that thirsteth, come ye
to the waters; and he that hath no money, come buy and eat; yea, come buy wine
and milk without money and without price.
51 Wherefore, do not spend money for that which is of no
worth, nor your labor for that which cannot satisfy. Hearken diligently unto
me, and remember the words which I have spoken; and come unto the Holy One of
Israel, and feast upon that which perisheth not, neither can be corrupted, and
let your soul delight in fatness.
52 Behold, my beloved brethren, remember the words of
your God; pray unto him continually by day, and give thanks unto his holy name
by night. Let your hearts rejoice.
53 And behold how great the covenants of the Lord, and
how great his condescensions unto the children of men; and because of his
greatness, and his grace and mercy, he has promised unto us that our seed shall
not utterly be destroyed, according to the flesh, but that he would preserve
them; and in future generations they shall become a righteous branch unto the
house of Israel.
54 And now, my brethren, I would speak unto you more; but
on the morrow I will declare unto you the remainder of my words. Amen.
Jacob calls on the people to prepare for that “that glorious day when justice shall be administered unto the righteous” (2 Nephi 9:46). What about the wicked? The wicked will “remember your awful guilt in perfectness, and be constrained to exclaim: Holy, holy are thy judgments, O Lord God Almighty—but I know my guilt; I transgressed thy law, and my transgressions are mine; and the devil hath obtained me, that I am a prey to his awful misery” (2 Nephi 9:46).
King Benjamin might well be referring to Jacob’s words when
he told the people if the works are evil, “evil they are consigned to an awful
view of their own guilt and abominations, which doth cause them to shrink from
the presence of the Lord into a state of misery and endless torment, from
whence they can no more return; therefore they have drunk damnation to their
own souls” (Mosiah 3:25). If their minds
were pure, Jacob would not be troubling their souls with his plain words.
Jacob speaks to them as their teacher. He had been set apart as a priest and teacher
by his brother Nephi (see 2 Nephi 5:26).
“[I]t must needs be expedient that I teach you the consequences of sin”
(2 Nephi 9:48). Jacob abhors sin and
delights in righteousness (see also Isaiah 55:1-2).
Jacob uses the metaphor of thirst and hunger when calling
the people to repent and come to the Lord.
The truth will satisfy their hunger and thirst. The Savior would tell the Nephites,
“[B]lessed are all they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they
shall be filled with the Holy Ghost” (3 Nephi 12:6).
Alma2 would tell Corianton that “whosoever will
come may come and partake of the waters of life freely; and whosoever will not
come the same is not compelled to come; but in the last day it shall be
restored unto him according to his deeds” (Alma 42:27).
Daniel Belnap writes, “But the invitation in 2 Nephi 9:50–51
is the victory feast for the righteous. The invitation to the feast repeats the
exhortation to ‘come’, thereby relating this invitation and feast to the
invitation in verse 41, to "come unto Christ.”[1]
The concept of a feast appears a number of times in the Book
of Mormon.
“The image of feasting upon the word of God appears six
times in scripture, all in the Book of Mormon. In the excerpt from Jacob's
speech cited above, the image of feasting on the word is visually developed.
The word of God is eternal; thus it is like food that cannot spoil. It is also
abundant and pleasing, so Jacob states, ‘Let your soul delight in fatness.’
Nephi employs this metaphor of feasting in the closing chapters of 2 Nephi:
"Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of
Christ, and endure to the end…”[2]
[1] "I Will Contend with Them That
Contendeth with Thee": The Divine Warrior in Jacob's Speech of 2 Nephi
6-10, Daniel Belnap, Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute.
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