Helaman
The Book of Helaman
Prophets in a hardening nation
Preface · from the original edition
An account of the Nephites. Their wars and contentions, and their dissensions. And also the prophecies of many holy prophets, before the coming of Christ, according to the records of Helaman, who was the son of Helaman, and also according to the records of his sons, even down to the coming of Christ. And also many of the Lamanites are converted. An account of their conversion. An account of the righteousness of the Lamanites, and the wickedness and abominations of the Nephites, according to the record of Helaman and his sons, even down to the coming of Christ, which is called the book of Helaman.
Chapters
- 1Three of Pahoran's sons fight over the judgment seat. One is executed, one is murdered by Kishkumen, and a Lamanite army walks into Zarahemla itself.
- 2Helaman takes the judgment seat. A servant in disguise learns Kishkumen's plan and stops him — and Gadianton takes his band into the wilderness.
- 3Thousands go north to a land almost bare of timber and build with cement. Helaman names his sons Nephi and Lehi so the names will hold them to good.
- 4Nephite dissenters and Lamanites take the whole land southward. Moronihah wins half of it back, and Mormon says plainly why it was lost: pride.
- 5Nephi and Lehi are imprisoned and encircled by fire. A dark cloud falls, a still voice speaks three times, and Aminadab tells the crowd what to do.
- 6Peace and free trade both ways, then Gadianton's band spreads through the Nephites. Mormon traces the secret oaths back past Cain to their real author.
- 7Nephi returns from the north to find the robbers running the judgment seats. He prays on his garden tower, and a crowd gathers to hear him mourn.
- 8The judges try to turn the crowd on Nephi. He answers with Moses, Abraham, Zenos, and Isaiah — then tells them their own chief judge has been murdered.
- 9Five men run to the judgment seat and find it true. Nephi is accused of the murder, and names the killer: the judge's own brother Seantum.
- 10The voice of the Lord gives Nephi the sealing power on his way home, and sends him straight back out — and this time he does not go by the road.
- 11Nephi asks for a famine rather than a war, and gets one. The people repent, the rain returns, and within a few years the robbers are back.
- 12Mormon breaks in on how quickly people forget: at God's voice the earth moves, the hills quake, and yet the people he blesses turn from him.
- 13Samuel the Lamanite climbs Zarahemla's wall to prophesy — four hundred years to destruction, and a curse on treasures that will slip away from them.
- 14Samuel's signs: a day, a night, and a day with no darkness at Christ's birth, a new star — and three days of darkness at his death.
- 15Samuel tells the Nephites the Lamanites they despise are the ones keeping their duty, and that God will not utterly destroy them.
- 16Some believe Samuel and are baptized; others shoot arrows that cannot hit him. He goes over the wall and is never heard of again.