And now behold, this was the desire which I desired of him— that if it should so be, that my people, the Nephites, should fall into transgression, and by any means be destroyed, and the Lamanites should not be destroyed, that the Lord God would preserve a record of my people, the Nephites; even if it so be by the power of his holy arm, that it might be brought forth at some future day unto the Lamanites, that, perhaps, they might be brought unto salvation—
For at the present our strugglings were vain in restoring them to the true faith. and they swore in their wrath that, if it were possible, they would destroy our records and us, and also all the traditions of our fathers.