The combined strength of the righteous was not enough to overcome the vast hosts of Gadianton Robbers, who, time and time again, swarmed from their mountain retreats, and carried carnage, rapine, and desolation, to the homes of the Saints.
Year by year these marauding bands repeated their incursions. Sometimes one party conquered, sometimes the other. This condition of affairs kept the people in such a state of terror and anxiety that life, itself, became a burden to them. Still they did not repent in sincerity of heart, and their many afflictions were permitted by the Lord because of their continued iniquity. The abridger of Nephi's record here makes the comment that thus ended the fifteenth year after the birth of Christ.