Mormon — Chapter 6
1 Now I will finish my record about the destruction of my people, the Nephites. We went to war against the Lamanites,
2 And I, Mormon, wrote a letter to the king of the Lamanites, and asked him to let us bring all our people to the land of Cumorah, by the hill Cumorah, where we would fight against them.
3 The king of the Lamanites let me do this.
4 So we went to the land of Cumorah, a land with many rivers and lakes and streams. We set up our tents around the hill Cumorah, and we hoped to defeat the Lamanites here.
5 After the three hundred eighty-fourth year had gone by, we had gathered together all the rest of our people in the land of Cumorah.
6 After we gathered all our people into one large group in the land of Cumorah, I, Mormon, began to be old. Since I knew this would be my people’s last fight, and since the Lord had commanded me not to let the Lamanites get the holy records our ancestors had kept (because the Lamanites would destroy them), I wrote this book based on the plates of Nephi. I hid under God’s protection all the records which God had given to me, except for these few plates which I will give to my son Moroni.
7 Then my people, and their wives and children, saw the armies of the Lamanites coming towards them. They waited for them with the great fear of death wicked people feel.
8 The Lamanites came to war against us, and everyone was very scared because there were so many of them.
9 They came against us with swords, bows and arrows, axes, and every other weapon of war.
10 The ten thousand people I led were all killed. I was wounded and fell down among them. The Lamanites did not know I was alive, so they did not kill me.
11 When they had gone and killed all my people, except for twenty-four of us (including my son Moroni), they went back to their camps. We who were still alive looked down at the ten thousand dead people I had led.
12 We saw the ten thousand dead people my son Moroni had led.
13 We saw the ten thousand dead people Gidgiddonah had led; and he was dead, too.
14 Lamah had died with his ten thousand, and Gilgal had died with his ten thousand, and Limhah had died with his ten thousand, and Joneam had died with his ten thousand, and Cumenihah, and Moronihah, and Antionum, and Shiblom, and Shem, and Josh — they all had died, each with their ten thousand people.
15 There were also ten others who died with their ten thousand people each. Yes, all my people had been killed, except for the twenty-four with me, and a few who had escaped to the south lands, and a few who had become Lamanites. The bodies and bones and blood of the dead lay on the ground, left there to rot by those who had killed them.
16 My soul was torn with pain and sadness, and I cried:
17 “O you beautiful people, how could you have stopped keeping God’s commandments? O my beautiful people, how could you have turned away from Jesus, who wanted to help and bless you?
18 “If you had not done these things, you would not have been destroyed. But now you are dead, and I am so sad you are gone.
19 “O you beautiful sons and daughters, you fathers and mothers, you husbands and wives — you beautiful people, why did you destroy yourselves?
20 “But you are dead, and my sadness cannot make you alive again.
21 “The day will soon come when you will live again forever, and your bodies which are rotting here will become perfect bodies. Then Christ will judge you by your works. If your works were righteous, then you will be blessed with your ancestors who died before you did.
22 “How I wish you had repented before these terrible things had happened! But you are dead, and the Eternal Father of heaven knows what you have done, and he will judge you with justice and mercy.”
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