This morning I read Moroni 9, and could not restrain myself from reading to the end of the Book of Mormon.
Right out of the chute—in verse 1—I found myself wondering about something totally unimportant, yet oddly human: How did Moroni receive this last epistle from his father? With all the fighting and depravity swirling around them, someone took a risk to find Moroni. And Moroni took a risk to reveal himself. Even in utter collapse, there were still messengers.
Moroni 9 recounts the horrific condition of the people as a whole—both Nephites and Lamanites. It’s around 401 A.D., and it feels as though they have utterly lost the battle against Satan. Anger fuels; death is everywhere. Mormon and his son Moroni seem to be the only righteous souls left standing amid the ruins.
Then, in verse 6, Mormon tells his son to “labor diligently.”
That phrase stopped me. Labor diligently? In this mess? What is even left to do?
I went back and read comments I had written in 2016 and again in 2023, and suddenly Mormon’s words felt painfully relevant. This encouragement applies just as much to us today. It is a call to repentance—and a call to never give up. Never surrender.
So how does that apply to my labor?
It means I never give up on my children. I never give up on me! I keep loving. I keep doing my best to bring them back onto the covenant path. If we don’t do this, we come under condemnation. We have a labor to perform to our dying day. It is to bring our brothers and sisters into the gospel fold and back home to our Father in Heaven.
Mormon defines the labor clearly: to conquer the enemy of all righteousness and to rest our souls in the kingdom of God.
The war Mormon describes is so depraved it is difficult to read. I have read many Holocaust accounts, and as horrific as those conditions were, I have never read of torture quite like what is described beginning in verse 10. By verse 18, Mormon cries out, “O the depravity of my people!”
It isn’t a stretch to lay the moral decay of our own day alongside this account.
Here are the words Mormon uses to describe his people:
- Depravity
- Cruel
- Hard-hearted
- Abomination
- Perversion
- Brutal
- Without order
- Merciless
- Past feeling
- Wicked
Mormon tells Moroni that if they perish, it will be like the Jaredites. We know that civilization became extinct, and Mormon can see that same end coming for his people. That warning feels uncomfortably applicable to our own day. In Moroni 10:5 we are told that the wicked punish the wicked.
After all of this, I couldn’t stop—I had to read Moroni 10.
Moroni exhorts me to ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things—the Book of Mormon—are true. Then he lists three requirements:
- A sincere heart
- Real intent
- Faith in Christ
If I bring those three things, God will manifest the truth by the power of the Holy Ghost.
Today, as I read this, I was filled with gratitude. Gratitude for my Savior. Gratitude for Mormon and Moroni. Gratitude for Joseph Smith. All of them sacrificed everything so that I could hold this book in my hands and read it sincerely, with real intent, and with faith in Christ—trusting that I will receive an answer. I will leave this thought to tomorrow post – The Invitation.
Moroni 9 leaves me sobered and unsettled—and I think that is exactly the point. This chapter is not meant to be skimmed or softened. It is a warning written in blood, grief, and unbearable loss. It shows what happens when an entire people harden their hearts, abandon God, and let anger and hatred rule unchecked.
And yet, even here—at the very end—there is still a father writing to a son. There is still counsel to labor diligently. There is still faith in Christ, even when civilization itself is collapsing.
This is the tragic, pathetic situation of the people of Nephi. Not pathetic in the sense of weakness, but in the sense of sorrow—because it did not have to end this way.
Tomorrow, in Part Two, I want to turn to Moroni’s final words and the hope he leaves with us. Because even after all this darkness, the Book of Mormon does not end in despair. It ends with an invitation.
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