O Ye Fair Ones

Mormon 6 (en español)

Going into this final conflict, Mormon is about 74 years old. He states, “I… began to be old.” (see vs. 6)

Mormon has witnessed the entire decimation of his world. His conclusion at the end of it:

O that ye had repented before this great destruction had come upon you. But behold, ye are gone, and the Father, yea, the Eternal Father of heaven, knoweth your state; and he doeth with you according to his justice and mercy.

Verse 22

According to Mormon’s account, 230,000 troops are destroyed. (I am assuming this is not counting women, and children.) Mormon accounts for 12 of his 22 captains by name, and their ten thousand that they each had command over.


I am sitting with the mourning and lamentations of Mormon in this chapter. I am also sitting with the conclusions that Mormon comes to based upon his faith. He does not condemn his people for their loss or their destruction, but he does explain the reality that their faith in Christ would have rendered a different outcome.

O ye fair ones, how could ye have departed from the ways of the Lord! O ye fair ones, how could ye have rejected that Jesus, who stood with open arms to receive you!

Behold, if ye had not done this, ye would not have fallen. But behold, ye are fallen, and I mourn your loss.

Verses 17-18

In verse 19, Mormon draws attention to the family relationships. This is what he’s mourning, and there is something profound in what he is mourning here, that I am not yet seeing. Three sets of familial relationships are referenced here in his mourning: sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, husbands and wives. Coupled with repentance, it is as if Mormon is asking: Did not your family relationships mean anything to you? I think sequence is important here too. We first are sons and daughters, we soon become fathers and mothers, and finally, after the children are grown, we are husbands and wives. Each of these relationships are augmented and refined through repentance (change). This is the ultimate thing that Mormon is mourning the loss of in these verses.

Unlike a Disney film, verse 20 reminds us of the ultimate finality of death, and how no amount of sorrow can reverse course in this thing. Rather, in the verses that follow, Mormon is forward facing, explaining in clear terms what happens next in the real story.

And the day soon cometh that your mortal must put on immortality, and these bodies which are now moldering in corruption must soon become incorruptible bodies; and then ye must stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, to be judged according to your works; and if it so be that ye are righteous, then are ye blessed with your fathers who have gone before you.

Verse 21

I appreciate that Mormon does not take it upon himself to condemn or attempt to judge his people. His on.ly lamentation is that they hadn’t repented, so that they might have been spared the fate that came upon them.


Repasando los penúltimos dos versículos de este capítulo, hay varios principios que Mormón hace hincapié:

  • La realidad de la resurrección y que nuestros cuerpos se tornen inmortales
  • La tribunal final de Cristo
  • Somos juzgados con respeto a nuestras obras
  • Buenas obras nos unirán con nuestros padres, los que también obraban en buenas obras.

Esta es doctrina profunda, doctrina verídica.

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