Some Nephites Repent

Many people heard Samuel, a Lamanite, as he spoke from the city walls. The ones who believed him went looking for Nephi. When they found him, they confessed their sins to him and asked him to baptize them unto the Lord.

But those who did not believe Samuel threw rocks at him as he stood on the wall. Many shot arrows at him, but the Lord’s Spirit was with Samuel, so they could not hit him.

When they realized that they could not hit him, many more believed and went to Nephi to be baptized. Nephi baptized, prophesied, preached, and cried repentance to the people. He showed them signs and wonders and performed miracles among them so they would know that Christ would soon come.

Nephi told them about things that would soon happen, so that when they did happen, the people would believe, remembering that they had been prophesied. But most of the people did not believe Samuel. After realizing that they could not kill him, they called out to their captains, “Bind this man, for he is possessed with a devil. Because the devil’s power is in him, we cannot hit him with rocks and arrows. So catch him, bind him, and take him away.”

As the captains started to come after Samuel, he jumped off the wall and ran out of their lands. He went back to his own country and began to preach and prophesy among his own people, and the Nephites never heard of him again. This is how the year 6 BC ended. By the end of 5 BC, most of the Nephites were still full of pride and wickedness, while only a few repented and kept God’s commandments.

This condition did not change throughout 4 BC—the eighty-eighth year of the judges’ reign over the Nephites. The following year was the same, except that most of the people were even more hardened, doing things that were more and more contrary to God’s commandments. But in 2 BC, two years before Christ was to be born, great signs and wonders were given to the people, and the prophets’ words began to be fulfilled.

Angels appeared to wise men, bringing them glad news of great joy. In this way, the scriptures were beginning to be fulfilled.

But in spite of all these things, only the most believing Nephites and Lamanites were not hardened. Nearly all the people in the land depended on their own strength and wisdom. They said, “With so many predictions, of course they have guessed some things right. But we know that all the great and marvelous works that they have predicted cannot occur.”

They began to reason and debate among themselves, saying, “It is not reasonable for such a being as a Christ to come. For if He will come as the Son of God, the Father of heaven and earth, as it has been spoken, then why will He not show Himself to us as well as to those in Jerusalem? Why will He not come into this land and show Himself, as they say He will in Jerusalem?

“We know this is only a wicked tradition, handed down to us by our forefathers to make us believe in some great and marvelous thing that will happen, not among us, but in some far away land that we know nothing about. This wicked tradition was designed to keep us in ignorance, for we cannot see with our own eyes if these traditions are true or not. Those who teach us, using these wicked traditions, do it by the cunning and mysterious arts of the evil one, working this great mystery that we cannot understand. They do this to keep us down—to be servants to their words and to them, for we depend on them to teach us the word. If we let them, they would keep us in ignorance all our lives.”

Now the people imagined in their hearts many other things like this, which were foolish and vain. They were very disturbed, for Satan stirred them up to sin constantly. Satan spread rumors and contentions all over the land to harden the people’s hearts against good and against that which was to come.

By the beginning of 1 BC, in spite of all the signs, wonders, and miracles that the Lord’s people had performed, Satan had taken a great hold upon the hearts of nearly all the people in the land. This is the end of Helaman’s book, according to the record that he and his sons made.