Nephi reluctantly acquiesced to serve as a king over his people. He had been serving as a ruler and a teacher in the entire Lehite colony, but the rebelliousness of some had caused Nephi’s departure, and now the Lamanites were “cut off from the presence of the Lord.” They had brought on themselves “a sore cursing,” which included cutting themselves off from the Spirit of the Lord, from the use of true priesthood, and from the ordinances of the house of the Lord. A mark of that curse was “a skin of blackness” and a loathsome repulsiveness to the Nephites. The Lord God would use the Lamanites as a “scourge” to the Nephites “to stir them up in remembrance” of him. God warned that if the time ever came when the Nephites refused to remember him and be obedient to him, the Lamanites would “scourge them even unto destruction,” which is exactly what happened hundreds of years later.