Jacob, Chapter 5

1) Behold, my brethren, do ye not remember to have read the words of the prophet Zenos, which I have right here on the brass plates we stole from Laban?

2) And behold, notwithstanding ye can read them at any time, I shall copy all 77 verses onto these plates of Nephi for no apparent reason, even though I am running out of room and just complained about how hard is it to engrave anything.

3) For behold, thus saith the Lord, I will paint thee, O house of Israel in Jerusalem, with a broad brush and think of thee as if ye were all part of an olive tree, for I must judge nations as a whole and do not have time to consider your unique circumstances individually.

4) And it came to pass that the master of the vineyard went forth and saw that there were olive trees growing where there should have been grapes, and he did wonder if he should instead start calling it an orchard or a grove, but did eschew the thought and continued to call it a vineyard.

5) And it came to pass that he did callously ignore all the other trees and paid special attention to the one that represented Israel, digging and pruning and doing whatever it is that grape growers do to olive trees.

6) And it came to pass that after many days it began to put forth a few young and tender branches, for behold, that is what olive trees do in the Spring. Nevertheless, the main top began to perish.

7) And it came to pass that the master of the vineyard said unto his servant: It grieveth me that I should lose this tree; wherefore, pluck off all the branches which are beginning to wither away, and we will cast them into the fire that they may be burned.

8) And behold, saith the Lord of the vineyard, notwithstanding I desire to save this tree, I will cut off many of these good new shoots as well, that I may preserve the fruit of this tree even if it should die, for Israelites are more delightsome to me than people that grow from other cultures. Not to be racist or anything.

9) And since I am weakening this tree by getting rid of a lot of the new growth, just replace it by grafting branches from other trees. And these which I have plucked off I will cast into the fire and burn them, that they may not cumber the ground of my vineyard.

10) And the servant was incredulous, and said, thou art going to burn the new branches? For the servant did not realize that the Lord had used a dangling participle. Nor did he understand why they were cutting and grafting all over the place. It made no sense. Nevertheless he did as the Lord commanded.

11) And the Lord repeated himself, saying: It grieveth me that I should lose this tree, wherefore, let's keep working on it, that I might preserve the roots that they perish not.

12) And the servant was confused again, for he thought that it was the fruit the Lord wanted to save. Not the roots..

13) And the Lord said, these will I transplant in the nethermost part of my vineyard, and I do not care what thou thinkest about it, and I do this that I may preserve not just the fruit and the roots, but the branches as well, for if I chop this tree into enough fucking pieces then some of them are bound to survive, right?

14) And the servant was again confused at the Lord's shitty use of dangling participles, thinking perhaps he was talking about transplanting the roots, but after thinking about the context he decided that the Lord must have been talking about transplanting the new branches, which he originally thought were going to be burned. And the servant was relieved, though a little put off that the Lord dismissed his opinion before even hearing it.

15) And so the Lord hid the natural branches from his servant, somehow. And it came to pass that the Lord abandoned his vineyard completely for a long time, just like any good omnipotent Lord would do.

16) And it came to pass that the Lord said unto the servant, who art thou supposed to represent? For it would be impossible to hide branches from Jesus or any of the angels, and the prophets on Earth are unreliable servants at best, if not part of the tree itself as per the metaphor. So whom art thou?

17) And it came to pass that the servant shrugged, and showed him the tree. And behold, the wild branches that were grafted in the place of the natural branches did bear fruit that was just as good as the natural fruit. And the servant said unto the Lord, behold, wild branches are just as good as natural branches, so there is no reason to try to save this tree at all. Let us just focus on all the other trees in this vineyard.

18) And the Lord said unto him: Behold, it is not that the branches from the wild trees are any good. The only reason they brought forth good fruit was because they were attached to the roots of the natural tree. Kind of like the black people who only ever succeed in life because they are attached to white Americans, who are industrious and virtuous.

19) And it came to pass that the servant realized his Lord was racist, and suddenly it made sense why he called his chosen race "natural" and all other races "wild."

20) But he put it out of his mind, and went with the Lord to where he had hid the natural branches, and the Lord said unto the servant: This is where I planted the natural branches. I guess there wasn't much point in hiding them from you. But look, this long time have I nourished this tree, despite being away from my vineyard, and it hath brought forth much fruit.

21) And it came to pass that the servant said unto his master: Are we ever going to harvest any of this fruit? Seasons seem to be coming and going, especially since these shoots have had time to grow into mature trees themselves, but we never do any picking? I don't get it.

22) And the Lord of the vineyard was angry, and said: Counsel me not! I knew that this would be an imperfect metaphor, so just roll with it!

23) And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard said unto his servant: Look hither; behold I have planted this one in a shitty piece of ground, but still it hath brought forth much fruit. I had my omniscience turned on when I planted that one.

24) And behold, I had my omniscience turned on when I planted this other one too, and look at how right I was.

25) And he said unto the servant: But behold, I forgot to turn on my omniscience before I planted that one thither, and simply decided where to plant it based on what I thought was a good spot of ground. My mistake. Now only half of it is growing tame fruit. The other half is growing grapes or some shit.

26) And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard said unto the servant, pluck off the branches that clearly represent the Lamanites, and cast them into the fire. For I have turned my omniscience back on and do perceive that the wild Lamanites will overcome the natural Nephites in the future.

27) But behold, the servant said unto him: Turn off thy omniscience, for that doth wreck the narrative, and let us try to save these wicked branches, that perhaps we might create a different outcome than what thou hast already foretold.

28) And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard did turn off his omniscience, and did think once again that he had a chance of saving the tree. And he did realize that there were other trees in the vineyard, and for once gave them all equal attention.

29) And it came to pass that a long time had passed away, and the Lord of the vineyard said unto his servant: Come, let us go down on each other, and then let us labor again in the vineyard. For behold, the harvest season doth draw near. See? That's how I intended this metaphor to work. The entire history of the Earth is compressed into one growing season, notwithstanding the fruit doth seem to continually die and get replaced with new fruit that is either good or bad. And I know that the tree representing Israel supposedly existed long before this season even started, since it had time to grow old. Just bear with me and my metaphor, okay?

30) And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard went down on the servant, and the servant felt better about all the confusion. And behold, all sorts of seed did cumber his mouth.

31) And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard did taste of the fruit as well, and said: Behold, this long time have we worked in the vineyard, and never until now have I laid up against thee.

32) But behold, now all my trees are fucked up, and behold all the fruit that was perfectly good a few days ago has now magically turned bad, and it profiteth me nothing, for profit is indeed my ultimate goal.

33) And the Lord of the vineyard said unto the servant: What shall we do to magically turn this fruit good again, for the season of blossoming hath already passed, and there can not any new fruit grow until next Spring.

34) And the servant said unto his master: Behold, thou hast forgotten what thou hast told me, that this is an imperfect metaphor. But, if I were to carry it through to its logical conclusion, I would say that the racial mixing thou didst cause by grafting in the wild branches did pollute the ethnic purity of thy tree. Nevertheless, the roots are still good, if we can get back to them.

35) And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard said: Fuck it. You can never separate the creamer from the coffee once it hath been mixed.

36) Nevertheless, I know that the roots are good, just like my original gospel is good. There are only a few minor doctrines that are fucked up.

37) But behold, the Arabs have come through like the Jihad and have overrun the Israelites, and because the people of God have been infected by their Muslim culture they have all become evil, and unless they fix their shit I'm going to throw the whole Middle-East into the bonfire, roots and all.

38) And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard said unto his servant: I'm tired of dealing with this shit. Let us go down on our nethermost parts again.

39) And after they had went down on their nethermost regions, they went to the tree that represented the Nephites and the Lamanites.

40) And the Lamanite fruit had completely overcome the Nephite fruit, insomuch that it had become thoroughly exterminated.

41) And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard wept, and said unto the servant: What could I have done more for my vineyard?

42) And the servant said, I suppose if thou didst turn thy omniscience back on thou wouldst know.

43) But the Lord ignored him, and kept complaining about how bad all of his trees had turned out to be despite the many good things he thought he had done for them.

44) And he did rant about how ungrateful all his trees were, and pointed out that he had wiped out the Jaredite tree to make room for the Lehite one, and still they refused to bow down and worship his awesomeness.

45) And his tirade did become very difficult to listen to, and the Lord did call his trees by racial slurs, even apes, wetbacks, niggers, redskins, chinks, dinks, wiggers, wops, micks, cholos, polaks, quashies, ragheads, and squinties.

46) And now, notwithstanding the Lord had created his vineyard, and did look unto his creations as if they were his children, he did say: Behold, they are of no worth unto me but to be hewn down and cast into the fire; nevertheless it grieveth me that I should have to punish them so.

47) But what choice do I have? It's not my fault. Sure I went long stretches of time without even visiting my vineyard, but when I actually did any work I worked hard, dammit! My own negligence couldn't possibly be to blame. It must be someone else. Who is it that has corrupted my vineyard?

48) And it came to pass that the servant said unto his master: Would this be a good time to turn back on thy omniscience? If not, that's cool, but perhaps the problem is that the branches have overcome the roots, and have grown faster than the strength of the roots. Behold, I know that's exactly why we pruned, and I know that thou thinkest that we have pruned sufficiently already, according to thy rant, but since thy omniscience is still off at the moment, could it be that thou mightest be wrong about that particular point?

49) And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard said unto the servant: Fuck pruning. I shall hew down every motherfucking tree in the entire motherfucking vineyard and burn them all to the motherfucking ground. It was supposed to be a grape farm in the first place anyway. Fuck this shit.

50) But, behold, the servant said unto the Lord of the vineyard: Spare it a little longer.

51) And the Lord said: fine, but only if thou blowest me again.

52) And the servant took the Lord so deep that his foreskin did melt away from the stomach acids. And his omniscience was turned on.

53) And the Lord said: I've got it! Let us take the branches of the Nephite tree and graft them back to the Israelite tree. And let us take some branches from all these other trees and graft them back as well.

54) And then let us take some branches from the Israelite tree and graft them onto every other tree. If we cut branches all over the place and graft them everywhere, then everything will be a big hodgepodge and it will all magically work out!

55) And it came to pass that they had a grafting party.

56) And when they were done they said unto themselves, we can do better than that.

57) Let us do it again, but this time let us cut the brush, and make it wet, and fertilize all these damn trees.

58) We shall have a grafting party the likes of which have never been seen in the history of grafting parties, and The Wolf of Wall Street will stand in awe at the sheer debauchery of it all.

59) And this we shall do because, well, why the hell not? We've got nothing to lose. It's all bad anyway.

60) Sure, perhaps I should have done this a long time ago so that my vineyard could have been fruitful throughout the duration of the metaphor, but, you know, better late than never.

61) Wherefore, go to, and call servants, that we may make this the best fucking grafting party that has ever been seen in the history of grape vineyards that are made up of nothing but olive trees.

62) Seriously though. Let's do this.

63) I'm not joking.

64) Nobody wants to come?

65) Was it something I said?

66) I thought I had a really good idea going here. What if I bring pizza?

67) Fine. And beer. On me. Ungrateful little shits.

68) No, there won't be any karaoke. This chapter has already dragged on long enough and I'm tired of repeating the same basic thing verse after verse. Let's keep it interesting people.

69) Yes, you can throw all the bad fruit out of the vineyard at the end. I'm going to burn the whole motherfucker down anyway. What do I care?

70) And it came to pass that the servants came, but not as many as the Lord had originally hoped for.

71) And the Lord of the vineyard said unto them: Now here were are in 1828, modern times. Let's 
clear out all these various belief systems in the Earth and see if we can unify them under the one true theocracy that fills the entire world.

72) And it came to pass that the servant said: Thou art treading on dangerous ground now, for these next verses contain events that are yet to come, and we don't know if any of this shit will actually be fulfilled or not.

73) And the Lord said: It mattereth not whether it is fulfilled, just so long as it keeps the faithful under our control.

74) And thus they labored into the future, with all diligence, even until all the bad had been cast away out of the Earth in flagrant contradiction to the narrative that the world grew more wicked, and the world did become part of one church, and nobody earned more money than anybody else. Especially not more than the Smiths.

75) And it came to pass that when the Lord of the vineyard saw that his fruit was good, and that there was no longer any trace of corruption, he rejoiced with his servants, and blessed them, and they had joy.

76) And the Lord said, for the next thousand years will I sit back and feast upon the fruit by myself, one by one, and I shall grow fat on your hides according to that which I have spoken.

77) And once I have gorged myself on every last piece of fruit in the entire goddamned garden I shall gather it all together, every last tree and every last branch, and I shall burn it all with fire to the goddamn bitch-ass motherfucking ground, so help me God. Amen.