No sooner had the missionaries left than the more crafty of the Zoramites devised a plan to discover the feelings of the community. They gathered the people together throughout the land and consulted with them concerning that which they had heard preached. In this way they quickly found out those who favored the missionaries' message, and those who rejected it. Finding that the poor and uninfluential were those who received it, they resorted to persecution and plunder. They drove the believers from their homes and out of the land. Most of these fled to the Land of Jershon, whither Alma and his associates had preceded them.
The Land of Jershon was inhabited by the People of Ammon. They also had left home and country for truth's sake, and now that others were suffering from the same cause, they received them with open arms as it were. They fed and clothed them, and gave them lands whereon they might build up new homes.