Helaman 13:29-39

²⁹ O ye wicked and ye perverse generation; ye hardened and ye stiffnecked people, how long will ye suppose that the Lord will suffer you?  Yea, how long will ye suffer yourselves to be led by foolish and blind guides?  Yea, how long will ye choose darkness rather than light? ³⁰ Yea, behold, the anger of the Lord is already kindled against you; behold, he hath cursed the land because of your iniquity. ³¹ And behold, the time cometh that he curseth your riches, that they become slippery, that ye cannot hold them; and in the days of your poverty ye cannot retain them.

Helaman 13:29 – 31 (Emphasis mine)

How long do you think the Lord will endure your wickedness, Samuel asks.  They are being led by “foolish and blind guides” (v. 29).  They are choosing dark instead of light.  The Savior said, “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19).

The Lord’s anger “is already kindled against you; behold, he hath cursed the land because of your iniquity” (v. 30).  They will become “slippery, that ye cannot hold them” (v. 31).

Avraham Gileadi wrote:

In such a day, the treasures of the rich become slippery, so that the rich cannot retain them (Helaman 13:31). The rich who do not give of their substance to the poor will lament in the day of judgment, crying, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and my soul is not saved" (D&C 56:16). In the great day of the Lord, the rich hide themselves in dens, crying to the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb" (Revelation 6:15-17).[1]

³² And in the days of your poverty ye shall cry unto the Lord; and in vain shall ye cry, for your desolation is already come upon you, and your destruction is made sure; and then shall ye weep and howl in that day, saith the Lord of Hosts.  And then shall ye lament, and say:

³³ O that I had repented, and had not killed the prophets, and stoned them, and cast them out.  Yea, in that day ye shall say: O that we had remembered the Lord our God in the day that he gave us our riches, and then they would not have become slippery that we should lose them; for behold, our riches are gone from us. ³⁴ Behold, we lay a tool here and on the morrow it is gone; and behold, our swords are taken from us in the day we have sought them for battle. ³⁵ Yea, we have hid up our treasures and they have slipped away from us, because of the curse of the land. ³⁶ O that we had repented in the day that the word of the Lord came unto us; for behold the land is cursed, and all things are become slippery, and we cannot hold them.

Helaman 13:32 – 36 (Emphasis mine)

In verse 32, we have evidence of a lament.  Kent Brown writes:

“[T]he recorded words of Samuel the Lamanite include two laments, that is, psalms or poems that express sorrow … The first poem is very short. Although it lacks the extended development that the second exhibits, it displays fine skill and balance in its conception. This first piece, which appears to be an individual lament, can be arranged as follows, repeating Samuel's introductory words that set it off:

                             And then shall ye lament, and say:

O that I had repented,

          and had not killed

                   the prophets,

and stoned them,

and cast them out. (Helaman 13:32–33)[2]

Samuel continues with them crying that we would have riches had we remembered the Lord gave them to us.  We lay a tool here and it is lost.  Swords are taken from them.  Had we repented, none of this would have come about. 

This prophecy was fulfilled 300 years later.  “And it came to pass that the Nephites began to repent of their iniquity, and began to cry even as had been prophesied by Samuel the prophet; for behold no man could keep that which was his own, for the thieves, and the robbers, and the murderers, and the magic art, and the witchcraft which was in the land” (Mormon 2:10).

³⁷ Behold, we are surrounded by demons, yea, we are encircled about by the angels of him who hath sought to destroy our souls.  Behold, our iniquities are great.  O Lord, canst thou not turn away thine anger from us?  And this shall be your language in those days. ³⁸ But behold, your days of probation are past; ye have procrastinated the day of your salvation until it is everlastingly too late, and your destruction is made sure; yea, for ye have sought all the days of your lives for that which ye could not obtain; and ye have sought for happiness in doing iniquity, which thing is contrary to the nature of that righteousness which is in our great and Eternal Head. ³⁹ O ye people of the land, that ye would hear my words!  And I pray that the anger of the Lord be turned away from you, and that ye would repent and be saved.

Helaman 13:37 – 39 (Emphasis mine)

The people will be surrounded by demons and angels of the devil.  But, it will be too late as they will have procrastinated the day of their repentance.

Amulek warned:

And now, as I said unto you before, as ye have had so many witnesses, therefore, I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity, behold, if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed.

Ye cannot say, when ye are brought to that awful crisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God.  Nay, ye cannot say this; for that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world.

Alma 34:33 - 34

The people have sought happiness through sin, “which thing is contrary to the nature of that righteousness which is in our great and Eternal Head” (v. 38).  Alma₂ told his son, Coriantion, “Behold, I say unto you, wickedness never was happiness” (Alma 41:10).

This destruction will come upon them unless they repent.  Hugh Nibley aptly sums up the Nephites' situation, “Even lots of money cannot guarantee you security.”[3]

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[1] Twelve Diatribes of Modern Israel, Avraham Gileadi, Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute, accessed August 21, 2012.

[2] The Prophetic Laments of Samuel the Lamanite, S. Kent Brown, Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute, accessed August 21, 2012. 

[3] The Meaning of the Atonement, Hugh Nibley, Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute, accessed August 21, 2012.