Helaman 6

Isn’t it interesting that the Nephites become the “hardened and impenitent and grossly wicked” people and it is the Lamanites who come and preach to them about their conversion. There is obviously a division of the Nephites because the righteous Nephites of the church rejoice in this miraculous change. It must have been amazing when, for the first time in nearly 600 years, the Lamanites as a nation are again united with Nephites in their belief. For a time there is peace and prosperity, but the Gadiantons once again grow in strength among the Nephites and the Nephites continue to dwindle in unbelief and unrighteousness. This is in contrast to the Lamanites who “grow exceedingly in their knowledge of God.” It is the Lamanites who have the willingness to believe and show great faith and spiritual power by hunting down the followers of Gadianton and convert so many of them that as a group of criminals they are literally destroyed amongst the Lamanites. But the Nephites embrace the Gadiantons with all of their secret ceremonies and signs, their penchant for robbing and murdering, and their desire for wealth and power. And so, they allow the Gadiantons to not only obtain control of the government, but control of their hearts and minds as well. Mormon must see a pattern in this as he says the Nephites are ripening for an everlasting destruction, something he is witnessing first hand. What sadness must have gripped his heart as he has had an intimate knowledge of the his people from the time they left Jerusalem to a thousand years later where he witnesses the end of a nation.