A Great Nation

Jared and his brother were both there at the time of the tower of Babel. The story is that the Lord wasn't very happy with them because the people were trying to reach heaven by building a tall tower, so He confounded the peoples' language and they were scattered.

I don't know how the word got out about this, but it would seem like they knew it was going to happen before it actually did happen, because Jared and his brother had time to request that their language didn't get confounded.

Jared asked his brother to "Cry unto the Lord" several times, first asking if their language would not be confounded, then asking if their friends could also have their language not confounded.

Then, they asked the Lord where they should go, and He told them He would lead them to a new land, and to gather their stuff and essentially get ready to go. He told them they should be made into a great nation.

"And there will I bless thee and thy seed, and raise up unto me of thy seed, and of the seed of thy brother, and they who shall go with thee, a great nation. And there shall be none greater than the nation which I will raise up unto me of thy seed, upon all the face of the earth. And thus I will do unto thee because this long time ye have cried unto me." (Ether 1:43)

The record of this great nation is entirely captured in 15 chapters in the Book of Mormon. As always, the Lord's promises are based on righteousness. If the people are righteous, they receive the blessing. But the opposite is also true. This ends up being true for these people. We will see that as we read through the rest of the book of Ether.