Forgetting the Signs
As the ninety-fifth year came and went, people began to forget the signs and wonders they’d witnessed. They grew less amazed when something miraculous happened, and their hearts turned hard. Their minds closed. They stopped believing what they’d once seen and heard. They convinced themselves it was all just tricks—human manipulation and devil’s magic meant to deceive them. Satan grabbed hold of their hearts again, blinding them completely, leading them to think Christ’s teachings were foolish nonsense. The people grew strong in wickedness and corruption. They didn’t believe there would be any more signs or wonders. Satan roamed freely, leading people astray, tempting them to commit terrible evils across the land.
Years Pass
The ninety-sixth year passed. Then the ninety-seventh. Then the ninety-eighth. Then the ninety-ninth. A full century had passed since the days of King Mosiah, who had ruled over the Nephites. Six hundred and nine years had passed since Lehi left Jerusalem. Nine years had passed since the sign the prophets had spoken of—the sign that marked Christ’s coming into the world. The Nephites had started counting their calendar from that moment when the sign appeared, from the time Christ came. So nine years had gone by. Nephi—the father of Nephi who kept the records—never returned to Zarahemla. He couldn’t be found anywhere in the land.
Despite all the preaching and prophecy sent among them, the people remained wicked. The tenth year passed in corruption. The eleventh year did the same.
War with the Robbers
In the thirteenth year, wars and fighting broke out across the land. The Gadianton robbers had grown so numerous and so violent—killing thousands, destroying cities, spreading death and carnage everywhere—that everyone, both Nephites and Lamanites, had to take up arms against them. All the Lamanites who had converted to the Lord joined forces with their Nephite brothers. For the safety of their lives, their women, and their children, they were forced to fight the Gadianton robbers. They fought to protect their rights, their church, their worship, their freedom, and their way of life.
Before the thirteenth year ended, the Nephites faced complete destruction. The war had become unbearably brutal.
The Curse Lifted
The Lamanites who’d united with the Nephites were counted as Nephites. The curse was lifted from them, and their skin became white like the Nephites'. Their young men and daughters became strikingly beautiful. They were counted among the Nephites and called by that name. The thirteenth year ended.
The War Continues
At the start of the fourteenth year, the war between the robbers and the Nephite people continued, growing more savage. Still, the Nephites gained some ground, driving the robbers back from their lands into the mountains and into their hidden places.
The fourteenth year ended. In the fifteenth year, the robbers attacked again. But because of the Nephites' wickedness—their constant fighting and divisions among themselves—the Gadianton robbers won many victories over them.
The fifteenth year ended. The people lived in constant suffering. The sword of destruction hung over their heads, ready to strike them down at any moment—all because of their sin.
Influences
- 2:1 — Luke 2:20 (KJV)And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.
- 2:2 — Romans 16:18 (KJV)For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.
- 2:2 — Hebrews 6:1 (KJV)Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God,
- 2:7 — John 6:14 (KJV)Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world.
- 2:19 — Mark 2:12 (KJV)And immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all; insomuch that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, We never saw it on this fashion.
Notes
- 2:15-16
The 1830 edition of 2 Nephi 30:6 read, “shall be a white and delightsome people.” In 1840, this wording was changed to “shall be a pure and a delightsome people.” However, in 1841 the text was reverted back to “white and delightsome.” It was not changed again to “pure and delightsome” until 1981—three years after the 1978 lifting of the priesthood ban.
Although many Latter-day Saints argue that “white” should be understood metaphorically as referring to righteousness or purity rather than race or ethnicity, statements from LDS leaders leave little ambiguity about how these passages were historically interpreted. Here are just a few statements from LDS authorities:
“You may inquire of the intelligent of the world whether they can tell why the aborigines of this country are dark, loathsome, ignorant, and sunken into the depths of degradation …When the Lord has a people, he makes covenants with them and gives unto them promises: then, if they transgress his law, change his ordinances, and break his covenants he has made with them, he will put a mark upon them, as in the case of the Lamanites and other portions of the house of Israel; but by-and-by they will become a white and delightsome people” (Journal of Discourses 7:336).
At the October 1960 LDS Church Conference, Spencer Kimball utilized 2 Nephi 30:6 when he stated how the Indians “are fast becoming a white and delightsome people.” He said,
“The [Indian] children in the home placement program in Utah are often lighter than their brothers and sisters in the hogans on the reservation” (Improvement Era, December 1960, pp. 922-3).
During the same message Kimball referred to a 16-year-old Indian girl who was both LDS and “several shades lighter than her parents…” He went on to say,
“These young members of the Church are changing to whiteness and to delightsomeness. One white elder jokingly said that he and his companion were donating blood regularly to the hospital in the hope that the process might be accelerated.”
Elder Eugene J. Neff, in a 1927 conference message claimed, “The first missionaries went from this section around to another little town on the east side of the island, and there they gathered in a grass hut one hundred people to hear the message of these strange white men, As they all sat around the mat and heard the voice of this missionary from Utah, they were transfigured before George Q. Cannon, and he saw ninety-seven of them become white, and three of them remained dark. He did not understand. He did not know why it was that three of them would remain dark and all the rest should become light. He received a partial answer to this manifestation when it was learned that ninety-seven of those people in meeting at this time joined the Church, became devout members, lived and died Latter-day Saints, while three of them never did. It is said that they will become a white and delightsome people. They are delightsome at present, and I believe they are going to become white. They are growing whiter from year to year. I have said to myself and to some of my intimate friends that I thought the Hawaiian people would become white and delightsome, through intermarriage. I do not know whether that is according to the doctrines of the Church or not, but they have married the oriental races and married white people on the islands to such an extent that today there are more half casts than there are pure Hawaiians” (Conference Report, April 1927, p.49).
The Juvenile Instructor (26:635) reads, “From this it is very clear that the mark which was set upon the descendants of Cain was a skin of blackness, and there can be no doubt that this was the mark that Cain himself received; in fact, it has been noticed in our day that men who have lost the spirit of the Lord, and from whom his blessings have been withdrawn, have turned dark to such an extend as to excite the comments of all who have known them.”
See also 2 Nephi 5:21; 2 Nephi 30:6; 3 Nephi 2:15-16; Jacob 3:8-9; Alma 3:6.