Mormon 6

Now I need to finish my record about the destruction of my people, the Nephites.

In the 384th year after Christ’s arrival I wrote a message to the Lamanite king asking him to let all our people gather around a hill named Cumorah, in the land of Cumorah, for a final conclusive battle. When this request was granted all of the remaining Nephites came to this one place and pitched their tents around the hill, in a land of many lakes and rivers. By coming together as one group I hoped to gain an advantage over the Lamanites and come out victorious. But I’d grown old, and I knew that this was likely to be the last battle of my people. God had commanded me to not let the sacred Nephite records fall into the Lamanites’ hands because they would be destroyed. From the plates of Nephi I made this abridged record, and then hid all of the records, except for these few plates that I’ve given to my son Moroni, on the hill Cumorah.

Our people gathered at Cumorah and watched in fear and terror as the innumerable Lamanite armies marched towards us. They fell upon us with swords, axes, bows and arrows, and mowed us down. When I fell down wounded amidst the 10,000 men who fought with me, the Lamanite warriors passed by, thinking I was dead. My son Moroni also led 10,000 men who fell, as did Gidgiddonah, Lamah, Gilgal, Limhah, Jeneum, Cumenihah, Moronihah, Antionum, Shiblom, Shem, Josh, and 10 others. In the end, 230,000 Nephite soldiers lay dead. The next morning when the Lamanite armies returned to their camps we found that 24 of us, including my son Moroni, had survived the slaughter. From the top of the hill Cumorah we surveyed the carnage. Except for our small band, a few others who had escaped, and the few who had defected to the Lamanites, our entire Nephite people were gone. Flesh, bones, and blood were strewn across the hillside and left on the land, to crumble, rot, and return to mother earth.

My heart was ripped apart in anguish. “My fair people,” I cried out, “how could you have departed from the ways of God? How could you have rejected Jesus Christ who stood with open arms to receive you? If you hadn’t rejected Jesus Christ, you wouldn’t have fallen. But you have fallen, and now I mourn your loss. Unfortunately my sorrows cannot bring you back. The day will soon come when your mortality will turn to immortality and you will stand in judgment before Jesus Christ. You will be judged according to your lives. If you were righteous, you will be blessed along with your righteous ancestors. Oh how I wish you had repented before this great destruction had come over you. But now you are gone, and only God the Father in heaven knows your state. In the end you will be dealt with in accordance with his justice and his mercy.”