The central government has reneged on its most important duty: supporting those who are fighting to preserve the nation. Moroni here directly accuses Pahoran of a crime—of permitting the slaughter of his people, whose blood he calls to witness against Pahoran and the other negligent judges. (See commentary accompanying Alma 1:13–14.) This strong statement should be read as turning up the volume for the second request when the first was unanswered. It seems unlikely that Moroni’s tone would have been this sharp in his first. Nevertheless, it would appear that Moroni’s temper might have been on a short fuse, based on a similar evident fury in his letter to Ammoron (Alma 54:12–13). While he was able to express anger in these letters, however, he was also able to control those emotions when on the battlefield, as witnessed by his treatment of captured prisoners.