40  And the angel spake unto me, saying: These ^alast records, which thou hast seen among the Gentiles, shall establish the truth of the first, which are of the twelve apostles of the Lamb, and shall make known the plain and precious things which have been taken away from them; and shall make known to all kindreds, tongues, and people, that the Lamb of God is the Son of the Eternal Father, and the Savior of the world; and that all men must come unto him, or they cannot be saved.

  6  And it shall come to pass that the Lord God shall bring forth unto you the words of a ^bbook, and they shall be the words of them which have slumbered.

  12  For behold, I shall speak unto the Jews and they shall write it; and I shall also speak unto the Nephites and they shall ^cwrite it; and I shall also speak unto the other tribes of the house of Israel, which I have led away, and they shall write it; and I shall also speak unto all nations of the earth and they shall write it.

  14  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 ^bdestroy our records and us, and also all the traditions of our fathers.

  6  And it came to pass that when we had gathered in all our people in one to the land of Cumorah, behold I, Mormon, began to be old; and knowing it to be the last struggle of my people, and having been commanded of the Lord that I should not suffer the records which had been handed down by our fathers, which were sacred, to fall into the hands of the Lamanites, (for the Lamanites would ^bdestroy them) therefore I made this record out of the plates of Nephi, and hid up in the hill Cumorah all the records which had been entrusted to me by the hand of the Lord, save it were these few plates which I gave unto my son Moroni.