Revelations Daily
Helaman 11 is a chapter that seems to have been very frustrating for Mormon to write. When he was done describing how this people went from their wickedness to righteousness and then back to wickedness, he spent another chapter lamenting “how false, and also the unsteadiness of the hearts of the children of men” (Helaman 12:1). One way to read the chapter is to compare that unsteadiness of the people with the steadfastness of Nephi who sought so diligently to help the people to repent. When the people were wicked, Nephi pled with the Lord to bring a famine: “O Lord, do not suffer that this people shall be destroyed by the sword; but O Lord, rather let there be a famine in the land, to stir them up in remembrance of the Lord their God, and perhaps they will repent and turn unto thee” (v4). He never gave up on them but was undeterred in his pursuit of their righteousness. After the Lord brought the famine, and the people started to repent, he pled again on their behalf...