One of the most poignant examples of how a civilization falls is found in the book of Ether. The story of the Jaredites is especially tragic in light of the numerous times that the Lord sent prophets to warn them that they were bringing a curse upon the land because of their wickedness. In time they were cautioned that they would suffer “utter destruction” if they did not immediately repent. But they refused the counsel, and the entire nation became engulfed in a civil war that brought about their extinction. There were only two survivors: Coriantumr, the king of the Jaredites; and Ether, the ­prophet-­recorder who had presented to Coriantumr the options of either repenting so that he and his family would retain the land, or, should he not repent, all of his people would be killed except him.

Moroni abridged the record of the Jaredites for our benefit. He wanted to warn us, as ­latter-­day inhabitants on the promised land, to beware lest we should repeat the same stages that destroyed the entire Jaredite civilization. He counseled: “And this cometh unto you, O ye Gentiles, that ye may know the decrees of ­God—­that ye may repent, and not continue in your iniquities until the fulness come, that ye may not bring down the fulness of the wrath of God upon you as the inhabitants of the land have hitherto done” (Ether 2:11).

A Pattern of Destruction

One profound message from the book of Ether is the need to follow living prophets. When prophets of God counsel, wisdom dictates that people follow that counsel. Therefore, one way to view the decline and fall of the Jaredites is to observe this sequence that repeatedly took place among them:

1. -Prophets: Prophets were sent from God to warn the people.

2. -Message: The prophets delivered God’s message which usually amounted to repent or be destroyed.

3. -Response: How the people responded to the prophetic message.

4. -Outcome: What happened as the people responded to the divine warnings.

This sequence of the prophets warning people only for them to reject the message is repeated six times in the Jaredite record. In the end, all of the people were wiped out through battles that took place up until Coriantumr, the last king. When the king ignored Ether’s final offer to repent and humble himself, the die was cast. Moroni explained that it was the Lord who brought about their destruction: “And now I, Moroni, proceed to give an account of those ancient inhabitants who were destroyed by the hand of the Lord upon the face of this north country” (Ether 1:1; italics added). Let us now follow these people from their beginnings in the land through to their ­terrible conclusion.

Jaredite Beginnings in the Land

The Lord led the Jaredites to this land of promise following the tower of Babel fiasco and the confusion of tongues (Genesis 11; Ether 1:33). In an effort to avoid the adjudication of the Lord who “confounded the language of the people” (Ether 1:33), Jared pleaded with his brother to ask the Lord for the following blessings for them and their friends and family:

1. -“Not confound us that we may not understand our words” (Ether 1:34).

2. “Confound not” the language of “our friends” (Ether 1:36).

3. -Perhaps He will “carry us forth into a land which is choice above all the earth . . . that we may receive it for our inheritance” (Ether 1:38).

The Lord granted these requests and led this colony “into that quarter where there never had man been” on their way to the promised land (Ether 2:5). “And they did land upon the shore of the promised land. And when they had set their feet upon the shores of the promised land they bowed themselves down upon the face of the land, and did humble themselves before the Lord, and did shed tears of joy before the Lord, because of the multitude of his tender mercies over them” (Ether 6:12).

The members of this colony multiplied and spread throughout the land. Initially, they were righteous, having been “taught to walk humbly before the Lord; and they were also taught from on high” (Ether 6:17). In time they became a large and prosperous population.

As the civilization grew, the people desired a king. The brother of Jared, as Nephi would later do, cautioned that such a choice would not be in their best interests (Ether 6:23, 7:5; 2 Nephi 5:18). Recall that King Mosiah, the Nephite seer who first translated the Jaredite record from ­twenty-­four gold plates and knew the story of the Jaredites, warned his own people of the dangers of a kingship. Perhaps his counsel also came from knowing the wicked acts of King Noah, the son of Zeniff, as well as those of another King Noah among the Jaredites.

It was under Mosiah’s counsel and inspiration that the Nephites changed their form of government to that of judges, replacing the tradition of kings (Mosiah 29:38–39).

The Reigns of Kings among the Jaredites

Despite the wise counsel from the brother of Jared, the Jaredites desired to have a king to rule over them. Initially, no one stepped forward to fill the position. Finally Orihah, one of the sons of Jared, consented and was anointed king. Orihah and his ­successor ­son, Kib, were righteous rulers.

Then a grandson, Corihor, confirmed the fears of the brother of Jared when he rebelled against his father and overthrew Kib and took him captive. While imprisoned (likely house arrest), Kib fathered a son, Shule, who “became mighty as to the strength of a man” (Ether 7:8). This son was sympathetic to his father’s plight, and he organized a successful coup that replaced Corihor and restored his father, Kib to the throne.

In time, Kib passed the kingly appointment to his ­deliverer-­son, Shule. Although Corihor repented of his rebellion, a son of his, ironi­cally named Noah, tried to overthrow Shule. He succeeded in taking the king captive for a period of time, and would have killed him except the sons of Shule “crept into the house of Noah by night and slew him, and broke down the door of the prison and brought out their father, and placed him upon his throne in his own kingdom” (Ether 7:18).

Rebellion and mischief continued, however. Cohor, the son of Noah, successfully divided the people into two groups: “And there were two kingdoms, the kingdom of Shule, and the kingdom of Cohor, the son of Noah” (Ether 7:20). In a fierce battle, however, Shule killed Cohor, and the kingdom was united again under Shule’s reign.

At this point, prophets of God raised a warning voice to the people that their wickedness was offensive to the Lord, that they were violating the covenant that allowed them to live on the land (Ether 2:7–12), and that divine judgments were imminent unless they repented immediately. This episode is the first of many in the narrative, as prophets were sent among the people to warn them that their wickedness was jeopardizing their continued habitation of the land.

The Days of Shule

Episode 1

Prophet(s): Unnamed, but “sent from the Lord” (Ether 7:23).

Message: “The wickedness and idolatry of the people was bringing a curse upon the land, and they should be destroyed if they did not repent” (Ether 7:23).

Response: “The people did revile against the prophets, and did mock them” (Ether 7:24).

Outcome: Before the people were destroyed, however, the king himself stepped in and preserved the right of prophets to travel throughout the land calling people to repentance (freedom of religion). In this case, before divine consequences were unleashed upon the people, King Shule stepped in to establish a law throughout all the land giving the prophets access “to go withersoever they would; and by this cause the people were brought unto repentance” (Ether 7:25), and “there were no more wars in the days of Shule” (Ether 7:27).

In this initial rebellion, the king intervened and issued what today might be called an “executive order” allowing the prophets freedom to declare their message of repentance and warning throughout the land. Thus the people were brought to repentance, and they survived this first trial.

The Days of Jared

Omer succeeded his father, Shule, as king, but one of his sons, Jared, stirred up a rebellion against Omer, taking him captive. This act enraged the other sons of Omer, who set about to free their father. They were about to execute Jared when he did “plead with them that they would not slay him, and he would give up the kingdom unto his father” (Ether 8:6).

This bluff saved his life, but he did not repent. Instead, he coveted the throne, for “he had set his heart upon the kingdom and upon the glory of the world” (Ether 8:7). Jared’s daughter devised a plan to recover the kingdom for her father with the help of Akish, son of Kimnor. Her plan had familiar overtones: “Behold, I am fair, and I will dance before him, and I will please him, that he will desire me to wife; wherefore if he shall desire of thee that ye shall give unto him me to wife, then shall ye say: I will give her if ye will bring unto me the head of my father, the king” (Ether 8:10).

Akish agreed to the plan to put Jared back on the throne, and he organized a secret combination to carry out the deed. However, the Lord warned Omer “in a dream that he should depart out of the land” (Ether 9:3). Jared became king because Omer vacated the title. Akish, having now gained a sense of power through a secret combination, decided to kill Jared so that he himself might ascend the throne. Internal dissent among the sons of Akish, however, led to his death.

Omer was restored to his former position as king. Emer, Omer’s son, followed his father on the throne. For the next ­sixty-­two years, there was peace in the land as the people multiplied and prospered so that Lord “began again to take the curse from off the land” (Ether 9:16).

The Days of Heth

After generations of peace and tranquility, however, wickedness returned among the Jaredites as a wicked king, Heth, ascended to the throne by murdering his own father. “The people had spread again over all the face of the land, and there began again to be an exceedingly great wickedness upon the face of the land, and Heth began to embrace the secret plans again of old, to destroy his father” (Ether 9:26). Prophets were sent to warn the people of impending judgments.

Episode 2

Prophets: “There came prophets in the land again” (Ether 9:28).

Message: “That they must prepare the way of the Lord or there should come a curse upon the face of the land; yea, even there should be a great famine, in which they should be destroyed if they did not repent” (Ether 9:28).

Response: “But the people believed not the words of the prophets, but they cast them out; and some of them they cast into pits and left them to perish” (Ether 9:29).

Outcome: The government, this time, did not step forward to sustain freedom of religion, so the judgments began.

On this occasion the king refused to intervene in behalf of the prophets. “And it came to pass that they did all these things according to the commandment of the king, Heth” (Ether 9:29). Consequently, the judgments of God began in earnest as the prophecies unfolded. “And it came to pass that there began to be a great dearth upon the land, the inhabitants began to be destroyed exceedingly fast” (Ether 9:30).

Poisonous serpents were set upon the people until they “began to repent of their iniquities and cry unto the Lord. And it came to pass that when they had humbled themselves sufficiently before the Lord he did send rain upon the face of the earth; and the people began to revive again” (Ether 9:34–35).

Peace and prosperity reigned in the land for a generation before Heth’s grandson, Riplakish, came to power. Unfortunately, Riplakish introduced wickedness in the form of polygamy, whoredoms, and high taxes. He even built prisons to house those who would not pay taxes. The people rebelled against his ­high-­handed policies and killed him. His son, Morianton, restored a measure of peace again among the people for several generations until the reign of Com.

The Days of Com

Episode 3

Prophets: “Many prophets” were sent by the Lord to declare repentance (Ether 11:1).

Message: The prophets “prophesied of the destruction of that great people except they should repent, and turn unto the Lord, and forsake their murders and wickedness” (Ether 11:1).

Response: “The prophets were rejected by the people, and they fled unto Com for protection, for the people sought to destroy them” (Ether 11:2).

Outcome: Com protected the prophets, and the judgments were delayed. Com “was blessed in all the remainder of his days” (Ether 11:3).

Com was a righteous king, as was his son Shiblom. One of Shiblom’s brothers, however, was a troublemaker and rebelled against Shiblom. He caused that “all the prophets who prophesied of the destruction of the people should be put to death” (Ether 11:5). Thus “there began to be an exceedingly great war in all the land” (Ether 11:4). Moroni recorded that the words of the prophets were fulfilled:

This great destruction resulted in “heaps” of bodies upon the earth, “and the people began to repent of their iniquity; and inasmuch as they did the Lord did have mercy on them” (Ether 11:8). The Jaredites, in this episode, were spared any further losses.

The Days of Ethem

Three generations later, a wicked king by the name of Ethem came to power.

Episode 4

Prophets: “In the days of Ethem there came many prophets, and prophesied again unto the people” (Ether 11:12).

Message: “They did prophesy that the Lord would utterly destroy them from off the face of the earth except they repented of their iniquities” (Ether 11:12).

Response: “The people hardened their hearts, and would not hearken unto their words; and the prophets mourned and withdrew from among the people” (Ether 11:13).

Outcome: With the prophets silenced, the Lord withdrew His spirit from the people. A series of wars began to decimate the inhabi­tants. The Lord provided numerous opportunities for the people to repent and change their ways, but they would not.

The Days of Coriantor

A series of political struggles ensued, and war came again. Moron was taken captive, but he begat a son while in captivity, whom he named Coriantor (the father of Ether), who also spent his days in confinement.

Episode 5

Prophets: “In the days of Coriantor there also came many prophets” (Ether 11:20).

Message: The prophets “prophesied of great and marvelous things, and cried repentance unto the people, and except they should repent the Lord God would execute judgment against them to their utter destruction; and that the Lord God would send or bring forth another people to possess the land, by his power, after the manner by which he brought their fathers” (Ether 11:20–21).

Response: “And they did reject all the words of the prophets, because of their secret society and wicked abominations” (Ether 11:22).

Outcome: This prophecy of utter destruction was carried out in the days of the prophet Ether and the king Coriantumr.

While a captive, Coriantor fathered Ether, the ­prophet-­writer of the Jaredite record. Although Ether should rightfully have been the king, his grandfather, Moron, had been deposed by some unnamed “descendant of the brother of Jared” (Ether 11:17) and his own father, Coriantor, was held captive. This usurper may have been Coriantumr’s father or grandfather, because “the days of Ether were in the days of Coriantumr; and Coriantumr was king over all the land” (Ether 12:1).

Ether “did cry from the morning, even until the going down of the sun, exhorting the people to believe in God unto repentance lest they should be destroyed” (Ether 12:3). His message was powerful,

And that it was the place of the New Jerusalem, which should come down out of heaven, and the holy sanctuary of the Lord.

Behold, Ether saw the days of Christ, and he spake concerning a New Jerusalem upon this land. (Ether 13:2–4)

The people rejected Ether’s message and “esteemed him as naught, and cast him out; and he hid himself in the cavity of a rock by day, and by night he went forth viewing the things which should come upon the people” (Ether 13:13).

Many sought to wrest the kingdom from Coriantumr. There was constant warfare, yet the people refused to repent and humble themselves. At one point, the Lord told Ether to go directly to Coriantumr and explain his options to save his life and the lives of his family and followers or they would all be killed except Coriantumr.

Episode 6

Prophet: Ether, son of Coriantor.

Message: “Prophesy unto Coriantumr that, if he would repent, and all his household, the Lord would give unto him his kingdom and spare the ­people—­Otherwise they should be destroyed, and all his household save it were himself. And he should only live to see the fulfilling of the prophecies which had been spoken concerning another people receiving the land for their inheritance; and Coriantumr should receive a burial by them; and every soul should be destroyed save it were Coriantumr” (Ether 13:20–21).

Response: “Coriantumr repented not, neither his household, neither the people; and the wars ceased not; and they sought to kill Ether, but he fled from before them and hid again in the cavity of the rock” (Ether 13:22).

Outcome: The annihilation of the Jaredite ­civilization—­Coriantumr and Ether were the only survivors.

Ether’s Prophecy

Ether’s prophecy to Coriantumr becomes a remarkable example of how prophets are able to see the end from the beginning, how they can give inspired utterances long before any details of the later events can be known. The extent of this prophecy by Ether becomes evident as we follow Coriantumr through to the end of his life and view how improbable the fulfillment of Ether’s prediction was at the time he confronted the king with the details of the future outcome.

To illustrate the implausibility of Ether’s prophecy that Coriantumr should be the only survivor of his civilization, we learn from the record that Coriantumr should have died numerous times from wounds and a loss of blood if not from infection (Ether 13:31; 14:12, 30; 15:9). But Ether’s word was true, and the prediction was that Coriantumr would outlive everyone else in his kingdom and he would live long enough to see another people inhabit the land (Ether 13:20–21). Ether predicted that this people who discovered Coriantumr, would also bury him.

The profound magnitude of Ether’s prediction deepens as Coriantumr battled his chief antagonist, Shiz. In an earlier battle, Coriantumr had killed Lib, Shiz’s brother. Shiz was so enraged that he swore he would avenge his brother’s death. This became the driving force in Shiz’s insane effort to kill Coriantumr. Their armies were engaged in constant warfare. After one battle, Moroni wrote:

Battle Casualties

Millions of people died before Coriantumr realized that what Ether had told him years earlier was true. But now it was too late. To provide perspective to the extent of the slaughter among Coriantumr’s people, we recall that when Ether first approached him with a solution to save his family and people, Coriantumr presided over a kingdom that must have numbered at least six to eight million inhabitants (Ether 15:2).

In those days, people fought at ­close-­range, ­hand-­to-­hand combat, in which a person was killed by a sword or blow to the head so that death came by bleeding or from a bashed skull. This is in contrast to modern impersonal warfare of death and destruction. In comparison with the millions killed in the final Jaredite struggles, from the Revolutionary War through the Vietnam conflict (including the Civil War), approximately 652,769 Americans died on the battlefield (World Almanac, 698).

The Fulfillment of Ether’s Prophecy

Thus at the time Ether initially approached Coriantumr to deliver his ultimatum, Coriantumr might easily have scoffed at Ether’s prediction that all of his people would be killed except for him, because of the sheer size of his kingdom. To think that all of the inhabitants of the land could be killed before the king’s death, given the fact that Coriantumr probably led his troops into battle, would no doubt seem preposterous to the ruler. And, there were times when it seemed that Ether’s prophecy simply could not be fulfilled.

For example, at one point the record states that his antagonist, “Shared, . . . also gave battle unto Coriantumr; and he did beat him, insomuch that . . . he did bring him into captivity” (Ether 13:23). For some reason, however, Coriantumr was not killed at that time. Coriantumr’s sons retook the kingdom by beating Shared and restoring the kingdom to their father. Coriantumr and Shared later fought again; before Coriantumr finally killed Shared, the record states: “Shared wounded Coriantumr in his thigh, that he did not go to battle again for the space of two years” (Ether 13:31).

On another occasion, Coriantumr fought against Lib, who “did smite upon his arm that he was wounded” (Ether 14:12). When the king recovered from this wound, he killed Lib. Then Lib’s brother Shiz swore that he would avenge his brother’s blood and he “pursued after Coriantumr, and he did overthrow many cities, and he did slay both women and children, and he did burn the cities. And there went up a fear of Shiz throughout all the land” (Ether 14:17–18).

Shiz was so barbaric in his treatment of the inhabitants that many people fled to his camp in order to escape death, believing that he would conquer ­Coriantumr—­for Shiz had “sworn to avenge himself upon Coriantumr of the blood of his brother.” Somehow Shiz learned that Ether had promised Coriantumr that the king “should not fall by the sword” (Ether 14:24) which made Shiz even more determined to kill the king. He was not going to let this prophecy come to pass.

In one of the last battles, “Shiz smote upon Coriantumr that he gave him many deep wounds; and Coriantumr, having lost his blood, fainted, and was carried away as though he were dead” (Ether 14:30). Shiz must have thought he killed Coriantumr; otherwise, he would have finished the deed at that time. But Coriantumr recovered to fight another day.

Coriantumr Sues for Peace

The ensuing battles became so fierce that Coriantumr “wrote an epistle unto Shiz, desiring him that he would spare the people, and he would give up the kingdom for the sake of the lives of the people” (Ether 15:4). But Shiz’s condition for peace was that Coriantumr “would give himself up, that he [Shiz] might slay him with his own sword, that he would spare the lives of the people” (Ether 15:5). This demand angered the soldiers of Coriantumr, and they refused to surrender. Battles continued to rage. Again the king was able to escape, because when he “saw that he was about to fall he fled again before the people of Shiz” (Ether 15:7).

The Final Battle

As Coriantumr saw his people decimated, he wrote a second epistle to Shiz offering him the kingdom if he would simply cease to fight. But Shiz would not. The record says, “And on the morrow they fought again; and when the night came they had all fallen by the sword save it were fifty and two of the people of Coriantumr, and sixty and nine of the people of Shiz” (Ether 15:23). Following the next day’s battle, there were only “thirty and two of the people of Shiz, and twenty and seven of the people of Coriantumr” (Ether 15:25). The battle ended when only two antagonists were left standing. Moroni details the end:

After the death of Shiz, Ether “went forth, and beheld that the words of the Lord had all been fulfilled” (Ether 15:33). His remarkable prophecy, uttered many years earlier, was now complete. True to the prophecy, the people of Zarahemla found Coriantumr, who “dwelt with them for the space of nine moons” before his death (Omni 1:21).

The Jaredites had many opportunities to repent and turn their civilization around in order to avoid the judgments that eventually destroyed them. From the beginning, they had been warned that “this is a land which is choice above all other lands; wherefore he that doth possess it shall serve God or shall be swept off; for it is the everlasting decree of God. And it is not until the fulness of iniquity among the children of the land, that they are swept off” (Ether 2:10). Many prophets warned of their impending doom, but they refused to repent and “serve the God of the land.” (Ether 2:12). Thus a great people were brought to an end because they refused to follow the counsel of the Lord’s prophets.

A Message for Our Day

Moroni saw our day in vision (Mormon 8:34–35). His people, much like those of Ether’s, were destroyed. He felt impressed to point out parallels between his own people, the Jaredites, and the Gentiles who would inhabit the Americas. He pleaded for us to “repent, and not continue in your iniquities until the fulness come, that ye may not bring down the fulness of the wrath of God upon you as the inhabitants of the land have hitherto done” (Ether 2:11; italics added).

As the ­latter-­day occupants of the promised land, we face a simi­lar test of following God’s prophets. Because this promise was extended to those who inhabited the land “from that time henceforth and forever” (Ether 2:8), if we will not follow our inspired leaders, then we will suffer the same fate as did these Jaredites.

We are to heed the prophets in our own day. The Lord organized His Church and kingdom with a First Presidency and Quorum of Twelve Apostles, with each member sustained by the membership as a prophet, seer, and revelator. Every six months, our leaders counsel and warn us on how we may improve our lives and avoid the tragedies that came to these earlier inhabitants.

Summary

The principle of following God’s prophets has always been a test of discipleship for the children of God. Establishing a community of the pure in heart can only come when individuals accept direction from living prophets. Our destiny as individuals in this dispensation, as it was for the Nephites and Jaredites, will be influenced by our willingness to listen to and heed the counsel of our living prophets.

President Wilford Woodruff warned the ­Latter-­day Saints: