Alma

The Book of Alma

The Son of Alma

Missionaries, dissenters, and war

Preface · from the original edition

The account of Alma, who was the son of Alma the first, and chief judge over the people of Nephi, and also the high priest over the Church. An account of the reign of the judges, and the wars and contentions among the people. And also an account of a war between the Nephites and the Lamanites, according to the record of Alma, the first and chief judge.

Chapters

1The reign of the judges opens with Nehor, who preaches for pay, kills Gideon in an argument, and is executed — the first priestcraft among them.
2Amlici loses a vote and crowns himself anyway. Alma meets him sword to sword by the river Sidon, and the Amlicites join the Lamanites against Nephi.
3The dead are counted and buried. The Amlicites mark their own foreheads red, and Mormon notes that a cursed people always brings the curse on itself.
4The church grows rich, and grows proud. Alma hands the judgment seat to Nephihah so he can go out and preach — nothing else will reach them.
5Alma's questions to the church: have you experienced a mighty change of heart? Can you look up to God with a pure heart? Are you stripped of pride?
6Alma sets the church at Zarahemla in order, then crosses to Gideon. Membership is open to anyone who repents, and closed to anyone who won't.
7Alma to the people of Gideon: Christ will be born of Mary, and will suffer pains and sicknesses himself so that he knows how to help his people.
8Ammonihah drives Alma out. An angel sends him back, and a man named Amulek takes him in — having been told by an angel to expect a hungry prophet.
9Alma preaches to Ammonihah anyway: the Lamanites will fare better at the judgment than a people who were given so much and threw it away.
10Amulek gives his own account — he was called many times and would not listen — then names what the city's lawyers are actually doing to the law.
11Zeezrom offers Amulek six onties of silver to deny God. The chapter also lays out the whole Nephite system of gold and silver weights.
12Alma tells Zeezrom his plan came from the devil, and explains the second death, the flaming sword at Eden, and why Adam was not allowed to live forever.
13Alma on priests ordained after the order of the Son from the foundation of the world, and on Melchizedek, who turned a whole wicked city around.
14Ammonihah burns the believing women and children while Alma and Amulek are made to watch. Weeks later the prison walls fall and their tormentors die.
15At Sidom, Zeezrom lies burning with a fever brought on by his own guilt. Alma asks whether he believes, and he rises healed and is baptized.
16A Lamanite army destroys Ammonihah in a single day. Zoram asks Alma where the captives are, recovers them, and the church spreads across the land.
17The sons of Mosiah, fourteen years among the Lamanites, meet Alma again. Ammon becomes King Lamoni's servant and defends the flocks at the waters of Sebus.
18Lamoni thinks Ammon is the Great Spirit. Ammon teaches him from the creation to Christ, and the king falls to the ground as if dead.
19The queen watches by the bed until Lamoni rises testifying of his Redeemer, and the whole household is overcome — the church begins among the Lamanites.
20Ammon and Lamoni set out for the prison at Middoni and meet Lamoni's father on the road, who draws his sword and is disarmed by Ammon.
21Aaron's road is harder: rejected at Jerusalem, mocked by Amalekites, and finally thrown into prison with his brothers at Middoni.
22Aaron teaches Lamoni's father, who prays to give away all his sins to know God — and then opens his whole kingdom to the missionaries.
23Thousands of Lamanites are converted and never fall away. They take the name Anti-Nephi-Lehies to keep themselves distinct from their own kin.
24The converted Lamanites bury their swords deep in the earth, and go out to meet an attacking army unarmed. A thousand and five are killed praising God.
25The Lamanites attack Zarahemla and lose. Noah's priests are nearly wiped out, fulfilling Abinadi's dying words, and many Lamanites bury their weapons.
26Ammon's outburst of joy over what has happened, and Aaron's rebuke that he is boasting — and Ammon's answer about what he does and does not boast in.
27Under threat of extermination the converts leave everything for the Nephites, who give them the land of Jershon. They are called the people of Ammon.
28A vast slaughter follows as the Lamanites pursue them. Mormon stops the narrative to weigh the joy of the righteous against the awful reality of death.
29"O that I were an angel." Alma wishes he could speak with a trumpet to all the earth, then checks himself: God gives each person what is right for them.
30Korihor preaches that there is no Christ and no sin, demands a sign, and is struck dumb — then confesses that a devil appeared to him as an angel.
31The Zoramites pray a memorized prayer from a stand called the Rameumptom. Alma's own prayer over them is one of the book's plainest.
32Alma to the poor, turned out of their own synagogues: compare the word to a seed, and see whether it swells and begins to enlarge your soul.
33Alma answers the question his hearers raise — how do we plant it? — with Zenos on prayer and Zenock and Moses lifting the serpent in the wilderness.
34Amulek follows on the infinite atonement, and on prayer over your fields and flocks: do not put off the day of your repentance until the end.
35The Zoramites expel everyone who believes. The people of Ammon take them in, and the Zoramites go over to the Lamanites, making war certain.
36Alma tells Helaman his own conversion in full — three days racked with torment, then the memory of Christ, and joy as exquisite as the pain.
37Alma hands over the plates and the Liahona, and tells Helaman that by small and simple things great things are brought to pass.
38Alma's counsel to Shiblon, his steady son: bridle all your passions, do not be lifted up in pride, and do not boast of your own wisdom.
39Alma's hardest letter, to Corianton, who left his mission for Isabel — and the answer to why his sin is so serious, and why Christ comes later.
40Alma to Corianton on the state of the soul between death and resurrection: paradise and outer darkness, and the restoration of every part to its frame.
41Alma on the restoration Corianton has misunderstood: what is sent out comes back. "Wickedness never was happiness."
42Alma's last answer to Corianton: why justice cannot be robbed, why mercy cannot rob it, and how the atonement satisfies both at once.
43War returns. Captain Moroni, twenty-five years old, armours his men with breastplates and shields while the Lamanites come naked to the battle.
44Moroni offers Zerahemnah's army their lives if they will lay down their weapons and covenant peace. Zerahemnah refuses, and is scalped.
45Helaman takes the records. Alma prophesies the destruction of his own people four hundred years out, then walks away and is never found.
46Amalickiah goes after the kingdom, so Moroni tears his coat and writes the title of liberty on it, and rallies the people to the standard.
47Amalickiah escapes to the Lamanites and takes their throne by degrees — poisoning one king, framing the murder of another, and marrying his widow.
48Amalickiah stirs his people to hatred while Moroni fortifies every city. Mormon says that if all people were like Moroni, hell would be shaken.
49The Lamanites arrive at Ammonihah expecting an easy city and find ridges of earth and timber. Not one Nephite dies; a thousand of theirs do.
50Moroni keeps building: new cities, a fortified line to the east sea, and a border dispute with Morianton that Teancum has to settle.
51The king-men refuse to defend the land, and are compelled. Amalickiah takes city after city on the coast, until Teancum kills him in his tent.
52Ammoron takes his brother's place. Teancum and Moroni retake Mulek by drawing its army out into the open with a decoy.
53The people of Ammon watch their protectors suffer and nearly break their oath. Their sons volunteer instead — two thousand of them, under Helaman.
54Ammoron and Moroni exchange letters about a prisoner trade. Both are furious, and Ammoron admits at last what he is really fighting for.
55Moroni takes Gid without a battle: a descendant of Laman gets the guards drunk on strong wine, and the prisoners arm themselves in the night.
56Helaman's letter to Moroni. His two thousand young men march to Judea, and go into their first battle saying that their mothers taught them.
57Helaman takes Antiparah and then Cumeni. Two hundred of his young men faint from loss of blood, but not one of the two thousand and sixty is killed.
58Helaman writes again, short of food and reinforcements, wondering why the government has forgotten them — and puts the victory down to their faith.
59Moroni sends for help for Helaman, and the city of Nephihah falls while he waits. His anger at the government begins here.
60Moroni's furious letter to Pahoran: does the government sit on its thrones in idleness while men starve? He threatens to come and clean it out himself.
61Pahoran's answer, without a word of resentment: he has been driven out of Zarahemla by rebels who have crowned a king. Come, but come to me.
62Moroni gathers thousands to the standard on his march, Pahoran is restored — and Teancum slips into the Lamanite camp one last time and does not return.
63Moroni dies, and Shiblon passes the records on. Hagoth builds ships for the land northward, and one company sails off and is never heard from again.