Book of Mormon Poet
Poetry in the BoM

Chiasmus · Mosiah 3:18–19

The Natural Man

The second chiasm marked in 1967

Benjamin sets the infant who dies in infancy against the man who drinks damnation, then folds the whole argument into a single demand: become a child again, through the atonement of Christ.

  1. A

    Men drink damnation to their own souls except they humble themselves and become as little children.3:18

  2. B

    And believe that salvation was, and is, and is to come, in and through the atoning blood of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent.3:18

  3. C

    For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever.3:19

  4. C′

    Unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord.3:19

  5. B′

    And becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love.3:19

  6. A′

    Willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.3:19

Why the form matters

Statistically among the strongest chiasms in the book. The natural man is named at the center, then put off. Little children at the opening answer the child at the close. The atoning blood and the atonement of Christ the Lord hold the same place on either side of the center point.