Reading Ether 14 and 15 is emotionally exhausting. By the time I reached Ether 15:2, I had to stop and sit with the number Moroni records: two million people had perished because of this war. I can’t even comprehend a loss of that magnitude. And it is after this unimaginable devastation that Coriantumr becomes willing to repent.
I’m trying hard not to pass judgment, but it does give me pause. Yes, he remembers the words of the prophets and finally applies them to himself—and that part is good. But it also feels heartbreakingly late. The warning had been there all along.
That thought turns uncomfortably personal.
We have been warned repeatedly in our own day to prepare now for the Savior’s return. How are we doing with that? When the “great and dreadful day of the Lord” comes, will we mourn and refuse to be comforted because we waited too long to listen?
This may be one of the most depressing chapters in the entire Book of Mormon. An entire nation is destroyed. How do you even process that—especially knowing it was prophesied and preventable?
As I read, my mind wanders to details that probably aren’t the point, yet still trouble me. One of those is the image of women and children outfitted for battle. We work so hard to shield our children from the world. Can you imagine strapping armor onto them and sending them into the fight of their lives?
And then I stopped.
Wait a minute.
Good parents today do something very similar—just in a different way. We wake our children early to read scripture and hear the word of the Lord. We feed them nourishing food so their bodies are strong. We teach them who they are, who God is, and how much they matter to Him. We try—imperfectly—to set righteous examples.
Isn’t that arming our children for battle?
Because we are in a battle. Not one fought with swords, but one that has existed since Adam and Eve. Satan is real. Evil is real. And the conflict for hearts, minds, and souls is relentless.
The difference is this: we already know the final outcome.
Christ will be victorious. Satan will lose.
The question is whether we are wearing the uniform of the winning team— Team Jesus.
That realization brings me back again to Ether. He knew how this would end. Coriantumr knew too—at least in part. He knew he would not be killed, yet he was willing to watch an entire civilization be obliterated. It’s a sobering comparison between civilizations—and between hearts.
Verse 19 feels especially piercing:
“They were given up unto the hardness of their hearts, and the blindness of their minds that they might be destroyed.”
I see this happening even now. People I know and love have been warned, taught, and nurtured in truth—yet they fight fiercely against what they were taught as children. Some seem willing to fight to the death to defend a life free of any restraint or divine accountability. That reality weighs heavily on me.
Other questions surface—small, human questions. They ate and slept. What were they eating? Who was preparing it? With women in battle, where did the food come from? These details probably don’t matter, yet they remind me that these weren’t just statistics. They were people living, suffering, enduring.
Moroni describes them fainting from loss of blood. I know how painful even a small injury can be. How did they endure such agony? Perhaps this is what he means when he says they were “drunken with anger.” Drunkenness dulls pain. Many people still use it for that very reason. Rage, too, can numb both pain and reason.
In the end, Ether witnesses the complete fulfillment of prophecy—and the destruction of his people. What a lonely, devastating burden to carry. I can’t help but wonder how long he wandered alone afterward, knowing what had been lost and why.
These chapters are hard to read—but maybe they’re meant to be. They force us to ask not just what happened to them, but what is happening to us, and whether we are preparing now—or waiting until it’s far too late.
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