The Book of Mormon — Chapter 1
1 Now I, Mormon, am going to write about the things I have seen and heard, and I will call my record the Book of Mormon.
2 About the same time Ammaron hid the holy records under God’s protection, he came to me. I was about ten years old and had just begun to learn the things my people knew. Ammaron said to me: “I can see you are a serious child, and that you understand and remember things well.
3 “I want you to remember the things that happen to the Nephites. When you are about twenty-four years old, go to the hill called Shim in the land of Antum. I have hidden all the holy records there.
4 “Take the plates of Nephi with you, but leave the rest of the records there. Write on the plates of Nephi everything you have seen that has happened to the Nephites.”
5 So I, Mormon (my father’s name was Mormon, too), a descendant of Nephi’s family, remembered what Ammaron told me to do.
6 When I was eleven, my father took me south to the land of Zarahemla.
7 The whole land was covered with buildings, and there seemed to be as many people as grains of sand by the sea.
8 During that year a war began between the Nephites (which included the Jacobites, Josephites, and Zoramites) and the Lamanites, Lemuelites, and Ishmaelites.
9 (The Lamanites, Lemuelites, and Ishmaelites were called Lamanites, so the war was between the Nephites and Lamanites.)
10 The war spread to the borders of Zarahemla, by the waters of Sidon.
11 The Nephites had gathered together more than thirty thousand men. During this year the Nephites fought and defeated the Lamanites a number of times, killing many of them.
12 So the Lamanites went back, and there was peace in the land for about four years — or at least, there was no killing because of war.
13 But there was so much wickedness in all the land that the Lord took away his dear disciples, and there were no more miracles and healings because the people were so wicked.
14 There were no gifts from God, and the Holy Ghost stayed away because the people were so wicked and would not believe in Christ.
15 But when I was fifteen, the Lord visited me because I kept the commandments, and I knew about Jesus’ goodness.
16 I tried to preach to the the people about Jesus, but I could not. I was commanded not to because they had chosen to fight against God. This was why the disciples were taken away.
17 I stayed with the people, though God told me not to preach to them. The land was cursed because they were so wicked.
18 The Gadianton robbers, who lived with the Lamanites, were all over the land, so people tried to hide their money and riches in the ground. But the Lord cursed the land so people could not keep their riches or find them again after they had buried them.
19 There was witchcraft and magic, and Satan’s power was all over the land, just as Abinadi and Samuel the Lamanite had said it would be.
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