The “pastors of my people” are the spiritual leaders condemned in a passage of Isaiah that Nephi quotes from the brass plates: “Hearken, O ye house of Israel, all ye that are broken off and are driven out because of the wickedness of the pastors of my people” (1 Nephi 21:1). The verse blames the scattering of the house of Israel on the failure of its leaders.
The Book of Mormon’s own counterpart to this failure is the “blood on garments” image invoked by faithful leaders who take their charge seriously. Jacob describes magnifying his office by “taking upon us the responsibility, answering the sins of the people upon our own heads if we did not teach them the word of God with all diligence; wherefore, by laboring with our might their blood might not come upon our garments” (Jacob 1:19). King Benjamin closes his reign by declaring he has “rid my garments of your blood” (Mosiah 2:28), and Jacob similarly shakes his people’s iniquities from his soul so that he is “rid of your blood” (2 Nephi 9:44). The wickedness of the pastors in 1 Nephi 21:1 is thus the inverse: leaders who did not labor to keep others’ blood off their garments, and whose failure cost Israel its covenant standing.
When Christ taught the Nephites, he explained that the law of Moses was fulfilled in him: “the law is fulfilled that was given unto Moses,” for “I am he that gave the law, and I am he who covenanted with my people Israel” (3 Nephi 15:2-5). The charge against unfaithful shepherds runs through other scripture as well. Ezekiel condemns the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves rather than the flock: “Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks?” (Ezekiel 34:2; see Ezekiel 34). Christ rebukes the scribes and Pharisees in similar terms: “ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in” (Matthew 23:13; see Matthew 23). The Doctrine and Covenants states that priesthood authority is forfeited when leaders “exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness,” at which point “the heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and when it is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man” (D&C 121:36-37).