They Did Not Mend Their Ways

Mormon did not go into detail about the next few years. After the famine was over, the prosperity of the people and its associated pride caused them to forget God and allowed them to sink into the grasp of the Gadianton robbers. We learn that the Gadianton robbers were “making great havoc” (v. 27). In the “space of not many years,” the band of robbers had become great and powerful. But at the end of the eighty-first year, the misery caused people to return to their God. The brief journal entries for those years are as follows, which probably suggests that nothing of value happened:

• And in the eighty and second year they began again to forget the Lord their God.
• And in the eighty and third year they began to wax strong in iniquity.
• And in the eighty and fourth year they did not mend their ways.
• And it came to pass in the eighty and fifth year they did wax stronger and stronger in their pride, and in their wickedness; and thus they were ripening again for destruction.
• And thus ended the eighty and fifth year.