The Fourth Time

○ imagined

Four brothers stood in the mouth of a tent, and the desert wind pushed at their backs, and their father had just asked them to do something almost impossible.

◆ 1 Nephi 3:2–4

Lehi had dreamed a dream. Back in Jerusalem — the city they had already left, days of hard walking behind them — a man named Laban kept a record engraved on plates of brass. It held the words of the prophets and the history of their family. Lehi's sons were to go back and get it.

◆○ 1 Nephi 3:5; the grumbling detail is ours

Laman and Lemuel said it was too hard. They did not say it once, either. They said it the way older brothers say things — again, and louder, and with their arms folded.

◆ 1 Nephi 3:7

And then the youngest of the four said the sentence that people have been repeating ever since:
"I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded."
— 1 Nephi 3:7

○ imagined

Notice what he did not say. He did not say this will be easy. He did not say I have a plan. He said I will go. Those are different sentences, and only one of them takes courage.

◆ 1 Nephi 3:11–14

So they went. And the first try failed. They drew lots, and it fell to Laman to go in alone and simply ask Laban for the plates. Laban threw him out and called him a thief.

◆○ 1 Nephi 3:16, 22–25; the detail of the packing is ours

The second try was Nephi's idea, and it was a good one. Their family had left behind gold and silver and precious things in their old house. We will buy the record, he said. So they went back to an empty home and gathered everything their family owned, and they carried it to Laban's door and laid it down.

◆ 1 Nephi 3:25–27

Laban took the treasure. Then he sent his servants to chase the brothers away — and the brothers ran, and hid in a hollow of a rock, and everything their family had ever owned was gone.

○ imagined

That is two failures, and now they were poor as well. Most stories would end here. Most people would go home.

◆ 1 Nephi 3:28–31

The third try was the worst. In the cave, in the dark, Laman and Lemuel were so angry that they struck their younger brothers with a rod, and it took an angel standing in front of them to stop it.

◆ 1 Nephi 4:1–3

And Nephi — bruised, broke, and refused three times — stood up in that cave and said: let us go up again. The Lord is mightier than Laban. He reminded them how the Red Sea once opened for their ancestors, and asked why anyone should be afraid after that.

◆ 1 Nephi 4:5–6

So he went back into the city at night, by himself. And here is the part of the story that is easy to read past:
"I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do."
— 1 Nephi 4:6

○ imagined

He did not know. He walked toward the thing anyway, one dark street at a time, with no idea what was around the corner.

◆○ 1 Nephi 4:7–8, 20–24; retold in our words

What happened next was hard, and it is a part of the chapter that grown-ups should read for themselves. Nephi came upon Laban in the street. Then he found Laban's servant, a man named Zoram, and — speaking as one who had a right to be there — asked him to bring out the brass plates.

◆ 1 Nephi 4:24–27

Zoram carried the record out through the gate himself, talking the whole way about the elders of the Jews, thinking Nephi was his master. He walked out of Jerusalem with the most valuable book in the city under his arm, and he did not know it.

◆○ 1 Nephi 4:31–35; the wording is ours

When Zoram realized what was happening, he tried to run. Nephi was strong, and he caught him — and then did something no one expected. He did not threaten him. He made him an offer. Come with us. Be a free man. Come down into the wilderness and be part of this family.

◆ 1 Nephi 4:35, 38

And Zoram said yes. A servant walked out of that city a free man, and he went down to the tents in the valley with them, and he stayed.

◆○ 1 Nephi 5:1–9; the running is ours

Somewhere below, a mother named Sariah had spent those days certain her sons were dead. When they came over the last rise carrying a heavy bound record, she ran.

○ imagined

Three tries failed. The fourth one worked. Nobody in the family ever forgot which brother said I will go before anybody knew how it would end.

— The End —

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[ILLUSTRATION NOTE — ART NOT YET CREATED]
Needed: an original half-page illustration — Nephi alone on a narrow night street, seen from a little behind, the city wall rising dark above him. He carries nothing yet. No weapon visible, drawn or sheathed. The mood is walking toward something you cannot see, not menace.
Constraints for the illustrator: do not reference, trace, or work from Friberg, Del Parson, Teichert, Rane, Brickey, or any Church-published artwork. Original costume, proportion and composition only. Nephi is a late-teen craftsman, not a bodybuilder. No blood, no wounds, no weapon in motion.

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