That the people will suffer because their leaders’ unrighteousness has so permeated popular thought and action that all of them—even such icons of innocence as widows and orphans—are “a hypocrite and an evildoer.” The young men will die, thereby condemning their parents to despair. Many will become orphans and widows in the war, but they are accomplices to the destruction because of their own departure from Yahweh’s ways.
Literature: This verse, like verse 12, repeats: “his [God’s] hand is stretched out still.” It marks the end of a stanza condemning the leaders, while the previous stanza (7–12), focused on the people and lands. The phrase will be repeated again at the end of verse 21 and in 2 Nephi 20:4.