Omni’s Book

Omni 1

My turn. I’m doing what my dad said, keeping the family history, etc.

I fought a lot with Lamanites, cut them up with a sword, killed my share. Probably overcompensating for my own bad behavior, though. I’m no better than them in a way.

Two hundred and seventy-six years from Lehi’s landing and it was backing and forthing the whole time when it came to homeland security, illegal invasions, peace treaties, terrorist attacks. Same old, same old.

Two hundred and eighty-two years now. I’m a failure at this. I’m handing this over to my son Amaron. (That’s right, it’s one of those Nephite name things: put an “m” into the name “Aaron” and poof you have a new name.)

I am Amaron. I’m determined to do a better job at this than my dad. Three hundred and twenty years after Lehi’s landing and the worst Nephites were dead. Killed by God, though with other people holding the swords.

God has something to prove. He shouldn’t have to, but he’s still a man, in a way. So he’s had to show that he’d keep his word. The truly bad people had to suffer, then lose it all. The better people lived, but still got punished for bad behavior.

Wow, this is hard. I’m a jerk. I’m giving this to my brother Chemish.

Thanks, I guess. This is Chemish and all I have to say is that my brother just gave me these plates to write on.

This is Abinadom, Chemish’s son. I’m also a soldier. Obviously a good one, because I’m here writing a book, not bleeding on a rock. I have no idea how many Lamanites I’ve killed. I really have nothing to say about God except what I’ve read on these plates. I can’t see that we need more on that subject.

I am Amaleki, the son of Abinadom. I’m going to make a go of this if it kills me. Let me write about Mosiah, whom we coronated as king in Zarahemla, which is like a big county or a province or something. Not the whole land, whose boundaries I’ve never seen. Probably no one has. Anyway, Mosiah heard a voice telling him to get out of Nephiland and settle on the frontier. Anyone who believed in that voice could come with. This was a very religious group, as you can imagine. Preaching, prayers, and premonitions galore. They made a caravan that eventually ended up in a place called Zarahemla, These people sang and danced, stayed up all night when our group hit town. They were pretty sure God had sent us to them with the brass plates they thought holy. They were a little-known outpost of another migrant group from Jerusalem in the time of King Zedekiah and the Babylonian captivity.

When Mosiah’s group arrived Zarahemla was huge. But war had kept the population thinned out. Isolation and illiteracy had mutated their language beyond mere dialect: none of Mosiah’s group could understand them. Education in history and religion had gone down the toilet. Mosiah started with an interesting strategy: make everybody in Zarahemla learn Mosiah’s language. Then they could give him the family history they had of his and, tit for tat, they made him their king.

One time they brought him a huge rock with weird letters scratched into it. He translated, with no lexicon or training, just God telling him what to say. The rock told the story of Coriantumr, who had lived with the Zarahemlans for nine months. The rock also talked about his tribe, his parentage and their long history, which went back to the Tower of Babel, and the fate of his people generally, which was essentially mass destruction, that ferocious divine judgment we keep hearing about, their bones spread like broken branches across the landscape.

I was born during Mosiah’s reign and outlived him into the current reign of his son Benjamin. I, like many who’ve written on these plates, have seen my share of war, including the latest one where we whipped the Lamanites’ tails, sent them running as fast as they could from this whole area.

I got old, had no kids, and so am giving these plates to Benjamin. I do reinstate the old messages: stick with your faith in God and all those odd talents—prophecy, angelic visits, intuitive translating, etc.—because, frankly, nothing good comes from the dark side. These things are good, so they must come from God.

I would add that you have to believe in the Anointed One, believe so hard that your lives become like sacrificial lambs. Pray and fast. Don’t quit all this stuff for as long as you live. That’s how you’ll be saved from hell.

Oh, I almost forgot. A bunch of our tribe went back to Nephiland, thinking they’d inherit some land or homes or furniture or whatever. They had to go through the same rough country as we did getting here. The man leading the excursion was like a wild bear. He stirred up enough ill will that his group started assaulting one another. This violence escalated until there were only fifty or so of the group left. Unbelievable. They all headed back to Zarahemla and attracted other adventurers—wanderlust is yet another lust we can’t seem to overcome. They left again with more than had gone the first time.

One of them was my brother.

As you can see, I’m at the end of this set of plates. Plus, I’m not long for this world. So I’ll quit here.