Alma 24

The unconverted Amalekites, Amulonites, and Lamanites rebelled in anger and hatred against their converted king and his AntiNephi-Lehi people. When the old king died that year, he was succeeded by his son, who assumed the name of Anti-Nephi-Lehi.

As the remaining Lamanites began to prepare for war against the people of God, Ammon and his brothers met with King Lamoni and his brother King Anti-Nephi-Lehi to decide how to defend themselves. Among the converted people, there was not a single person willing to take up weapons to defend themselves or make any preparation for war.

The king decreed that they should not fight against their former brothers. “I thank God that these Nephites were sent to us to preach the word of God and show us the error of our ancestral traditions,” he said. “I am also thankful that God has given us a portion of his Spirit, allowing us to receive the truth from our Nephite brothers. Through this communication we’ve learned about our sins and the wrongness of the many murders we’ve committed. I am thankful that God has given us the opportunity to repent these things and be forgiven through his son Jesus Christ.

“We were the most lost people of all mankind,” the king continued. “Now that we’ve repented and been forgiven by God, let us never again stain our swords with the blood of our brothers. If we stained them again, we might never be able to cleanse ourselves through the blood that Jesus Christ will shed for the atonement of our sins. God has had mercy on us by making these things known so that we will not perish. He loves our souls as he loves our children. He has sent angels to visit us so that his plan of salvation may be known to future generations. Let us bury our swords deep in the earth so that they will remain unstained as a testimony that we never used them again. If our brothers destroy us, we may go to our God and be saved.”

When the king finished speaking, all of his people joined together and buried their weapons. They decided that they would prefer to lay down their lives than to take the lives of their brothers, and they would prefer to work hard on their own than to take something away from their brothers.

The unconverted Lamanites, though, were intent on destroying the king and putting another in his place. They wanted to destroy or drive the Anti-Nephi-Lehi people from the land. When the people saw the Lamanite army coming against them, they went out to meet them and lay down before them, unarmed. They called on the name of God as the Lamanites began to kill them. Without any resistance, the Lamanites killed 1,005 of them, all of whom were blessed by God and went to live with him.

When the Lamanites saw that their brothers would not run from death, and that they cried out to God as they were being killed, they stopped the killing. Many of the Lamanites now regretted their acts, and repented what they had just done. They too threw down their weapons, full of remorse for the murders they had committed and hoping for mercy from those who remained armed. At the end of the day, more Lamanites were converted to God than the number who had been killed. God works in many ways to bring about the salvation of his people.

The majority of the killing that day was done by the Amalekites and Amulonites, none of whom had joined the people of God. These were people who had once been Nephites and had become apostate. This plainly shows that once people have received enlightenment by the Spirit of God, and then turn away into sin, they are even worse off than those who had never known these things.