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Fourth book in the Book of Mormon

The Book of Enos ('/iː//n//ə//s/) is the fourth book in the Book of Mormon and is a portion of the small plates of Nephi. According to the text it was written by Enos, a Nephite prophet. According to the Book of Mormon, Enos was the son of Jacob and nephew of Nephi. This short book consists of a single chapter, relating Enos' conversion after praying all day and all night, following with his subsequent dialogue with the Lord. It also discusses the redemption of the Nephites and their enemies, the Lamanites, and contains prophecies of future Nephite and Lamanite generations. Additionally, it contains descriptions of the Lamanites. The style of Enos resembles that of Erich Auerbach in his Mimesis and that of Nephi, Enos's ancestor and the Book of Mormon's opening narrator.

Enos hunts in the woods and remembers the gospel that his father taught him; as a result, he kneels and cries all day and during the night for the salvation of his soul. Then the voice of God tells Enos that he is forgiven of his sins. Enos believes the voice, but he wonders how the forgiveness is actually accomplished. In response, God explains that Enos is forgiven because he has faith in Jesus Christ, even though he has never seen or heard Christ. Enos then prays for the salvation of the Nephites, but God says they will be blessed or punished according to their obedience. Enos, fearing that the Nephites will refuse to obey the commandments of God, then prays for the Lamanites who oppress them; he asks God for the Lamanites' preservation. Additionally, he prays that God will preserve a record of the Nephites so that someday the Lamanites too might be brought to salvation. Only faith in Christ will save them, but God makes a covenant with Enos that he will bring the records of the Nephites to the Lamanites in due time. After this experience, Enos takes up the mantle of prophet and preaches among the Nephites, fearing their destruction. In the record, Enos does not say whether he is successful at converting the Nephites, but he does say the Nephites fail to convert the Lamanites. Before Enos dies he gives the records to his son Jarom.

Throughout the narrative, Enos characterizes the Lamanites as possessing an unmoving hatred. According to Enos, the Lamanites become a wild, idolatrous, and bloodthirsty people, eating predatory animals. They live in tents, wander around in the wilderness, wear loincloths, shave their heads, and often eat raw meat. Enos explains that they are skilled with bows, cimeters, and axes and continually seek to destroy the Nephites. Fatimah Salleh and Margaret Olsen Hemming noticed that Enos implies that Lamanite practices, like eating raw meat, connote corruption, even though the same behavior had no negative connotations earlier in the Book of Mormon when the Nephites and Lamanites were still one people. Thus, Enos demonstrates "writer's bias." Hemming and Salleh concluded that Enos's criticism of the Lamanites is based more on prejudice and what is culturally acceptable to the Nephite rather than based on a charge from God.