Alma 2

In the fifth year there was a sneaky man named Amlici. With tricky words, he became powerful. He wanted to be king. This upset the people of the church. They knew that if Amlici became king, he would take away their rights. Amlici wanted to destroy the Church of God.

One day all the people came together to vote for or against Amlici. Most of the people voted against Amlici.

But Amlici stirred up his people to anger. They said Amlici was their king. He told his followers to fight against the rest of the people.

The people of Amlici were called Amlicites. The rest of the people were called Nephites, or the people of God.

The Amlicites wanted to kill them. The Nephites prepared with swords, bows, arrows, stones, slings and all kinds of weapons.

The Amlicites came near the river Sidon to war. Alma fought at the front of his armies against the Amlicites. They began to battle on the hill east of Sidon.

The Amlicites fought with great strength and killed many of the Nephites, but the Lord gave strength to the Nephites. The Amlicites began to run away.

The Nephites chased them all day and killed twelve thousand five hundred thirty two Amlicites. Six thousand five hundred sixty two Nephites were killed.

When Alma could no longer chase the Amlicites, he had his people put up their tents in the valley of Gideon. The valley was called Gideon, in honor of the man who was killed by Nehor.

Alma sent spies to follow the Amlicites. In the morning, the spies came running fast back into camp. They were so scared, saying: We followed them and to our great surprise, we saw a great army of Lamanites.

The Amlicites joined them. They are killing our brothers, sisters and children in that land. Now they are coming to our city, Zarahemla. If we do not hurry, they will take our city. Our wives and children will be killed.

The army of Nephi ran toward their city. As they were crossing the river Sidon, the Lamanite and Amlicite warriors were as many as the sands of the sea.

The Amlicites had painted their foreheads red like the Lamanites. The heads of the Lamanites were shaved. The Nephites began to pray mightily for God to save them. The Lord gave them strength.

Alma fought face to face with Amlici. Alma cried out: O Lord, have mercy and spare my life, that I may be a tool in your hands to save this people. When Alma said these words, he struggled again with Amlici and killed him with the sword.

Then Alma fought the Lamanite king, but he ran away, sending his guards to kill Alma. Alma and his guards killed them and pushed them back to a part of the land that is full of wild, hungry beasts. Many Lamanites and Amlicites were eaten by wild animals and by vultures. Their bones are found in large piles.