Benjamin has described two specific communal “sins”: the social stratification caused by selfish withholding of substance and the social tensions created when substance is loaned (rather than given, as in the first case) but not returned. In both cases, the effect is social division. In both cases, their causes are declared sin.
Benjamin realizes that these two examples do not exhaust the catalog of possible sins, even of possible social sins. He therefore specifies that his people can sin in many other unspecified ways. The solution is to conform one’s thoughts, words, and deeds to Yahweh’s commandments. If Benjamin’s people, and we modern readers, follow this principle and continue steadfastly in that effort, then we may achieve salvation—then we will not perish.
Benjamin’s final statement is his plea that his people follow these commandments so that they will “remember, and perish not.”
Text: This injunction concludes another portion of Benjamin’s discourse, and occasions a chapter break in the 1830 edition. The next chapter begins with Mormon’s introduction to another portion of copied text.