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Third Nephi — Chapter 7

¹ Now I will show you that these wicked people did not make a king over the land, but during the thirtieth year, they murdered the chief judge of the land.

² The people were divided from each other by tribes, so the government was destroyed.

³ Every family had a chief to rule them, so there were tribes and chiefs of tribes.

⁴ Every chief had a large family and many friends, so their tribes were very large.

⁵ When all this happened, there were no wars between them yet. But all this wickedness happened because the people had given power to Satan.

⁶ The laws of the government were destroyed because of the secret combinations of friends and families of those who killed the prophets.

⁷ They caused so much trouble in the land that most of the righteous people became wicked. Then there were very few righteous people among them.

⁸ It had been only six years since most of the people had been righteous. They went back to being wicked just like a dog goes back to its vomit and like a pig goes back to lying in the mud.

⁹ The secret combination which caused this wickedness gathered together and chose a chief named Jacob.

¹⁰ He became the king of this wicked group. He was one of the people who had said the most against the prophets who talked about Jesus.

¹¹ This group did not have as many people as most of the tribes. These tribes worked together, except that they each had their own laws and their own chiefs. Even though these tribes were enemies, and though they were not righteous, they all hated those who had promised to destroy the government.

¹² When King Jacob saw that his enemies had more people than he did, he commanded his people to run away to the most northern part of the land, where they would have a kingdom until the time they had enough people to fight against the tribes. (Jacob told his people that many rebels would also join them.)

¹³ They ran away from the people so quickly that they could not be stopped. This was how the thirtieth year ended, and this was how things were with the Nephites.

¹⁴ During the thirty-first year, all the people were divided into tribes — every person with their families and friends. They promised not to make war with each other, but each tribe’s laws were different, and the way they were ruled was different, based on what their chiefs and rulers wanted. They all had very strong laws about not fighting each other, so there was some peace in the land, but they were all against God, and they stoned the prophets and threw them out.

¹⁵ Nephi had been visited by angels and had heard the Lord’s voice, and he had been given the power to know about Christ’s life on earth. He had seen how fast the Nephites had gone from being good to being wicked.

¹⁶ He was very sad about their hard hearts and blind minds, so he went among them during that same year and began to boldly tell them about repentance and forgiveness of sins through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

¹⁷ He taught many things to them — too many to write in this book. Since it would not be good to write only part of what he taught, none of those things are written in this book. But Nephi taught them with great power.

¹⁸ The people were angry with him because he had more power than they did. Angels visited him every day because of his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, so it was impossible for them not to believe what he said.

¹⁹ He threw out devils and evil spirits in Jesus’ name. He brought his brother back from the dead after the people had stoned him to death.

²² Everyone who had had devils leave them, and who had been healed from their sicknesses, told the people that the Spirit of God had done it. They showed some signs and did some miracles among the people, too.

²³ This was how the thirty-second year ended, too. And Nephi preached repentance and forgiveness of sins to the people at the beginning of the thirty-third year.

²⁴ Now, I want you to remember that every person who repented was baptized with water.

²⁵ So Nephi gave men power to baptize with water all the people who repented. This was a sign and witness to God and to the people that they had repented and been forgiven of their sins.

²⁶ Many repented and were baptized at the beginning of that year, and that was how most of the year passed by.