Jacob 3:7-10

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Reference Search: Jacob 3:7-10

7 Behold, their husbands love their wives, and their wives love their husbands; and their husbands and their wives love their children; and their unbelief and their hatred towards you is because of the iniquity of their fathers; wherefore, how much better are you than they, in the sight of your great Creator?

8 O my brethren, I fear that unless ye shall repent of your sins that their skins will be whiter than yours, when ye shall be brought with them before the throne of God.

9 Wherefore, a commandment I give unto you, which is the word of God, that ye revile no more against them because of the darkness of their skins; neither shall ye revile against them because of their filthiness; but ye shall remember your own filthiness, and remember that their filthiness came because of their fathers.

10 Wherefore, ye shall remember your children, how that ye have grieved their hearts because of the example that ye have set before them; and also, remember that ye may, because of your filthiness, bring your children unto destruction, and their sins be heaped upon your heads at the last day.

Quote for Discussion

Behavioral patterns and attitudes frequently continue from generation to generation. Posterity is often beholden to ancestry for their views of God, man, and the purposes of life. Though it is true that each person who comes to earth is responsible to cleave to the truth and reject falsehoods, it is also true that in the eyes of the Lord parents and grandparents bear the burden for that which they taught or failed to teach their offspring (see D&C 68:25; 93:39). In speaking of the wickedness of the days of Noah, the Lord explained to Enoch: “Among all the workmanship of mine hands there has not been so great wickedness as among thy brethren. But behold, their sins shall be upon the heads of their fathers.” (Moses 7:36-37; italics added.)

In addition, most of the Lamanites did not sin against light, as did their Nephite kinsmen. The Nephites simply knew better, and the Lord would inflict a punishment upon them far more readily than upon those whose sins and disbelief resulted from ignorant tradition. “For behold,” Nephi, son of Helaman, said, the Lamanites “are more righteous than you, for they have not sinned against that great knowledge which ye [the Nephites] have received; therefore the Lord will be merciful unto them; yea, he will lengthen out their days and increase their seed, even when thou shalt be utterly destroyed except thou shalt repent” (Helaman 7:24). It is the light of the soul and not the color of the skin by which one is judged.

Millet & McConkie, Doctrinal Commentary on BOM, Vol 2 p. 30-31