Good Ground – Jacob 5

No matter how often I read the Book of Mormon, I always find something that I don’t recall seeing before.  In my reading of Jacob 5 tonight – the allegory of the olive tree – for the first time I really saw verses 43-44.  It’s near the end and the lord of the vineyard and his servant are going through the vineyard for the last time, harvesting what fruit was good, burning what had corrupted.  But by these verses, all the trees of the vineyard had become corrupted, even the branch broken off and grafted in a good spot of ground:

  43 And behold this last, whose branch hath withered away, I did plant in a ^agood spot of ground; yea, even that which was choice unto me above all other parts of the land of my vineyard.

  44 And thou beheldest that I also cut down that which ^acumbered this spot of ground, that I might plant this tree in the stead thereof.

We know that the “choice land” is here in the Americas.  In the Book of Mormon, the Jaredites – who had come out from the tower of Babel – quickly fell into wickedness and didn’t much change until they were utterly destroyed, despite all the opportunities they had been given to repent.  They were “cut down” and the colony of Lehi put in place.  By that time, the Nephites and Lamanites were beginning to fill the land, having been brought from Jerusalem to the promised land.  Yet the Nephites eventually met the same end as the Jaredites, becoming so wicked that they were past feeling and chance of repentance.  Then the Spirit of God wrought upon Gentiles to come to this land and build up this country and people.

We live in the promised land.  God Bless America!