The next generation started having serious challenges with unchastity, money, and pride, so Jacob and his brother Joseph, having been consecrated priests and teachers by Nephi and, as Jacob writes, “having obtained mine errand from the Lord,” launched into a vigorous campaign to teach the doctrine of Christ and call their people to repentance. “We did magnify [amplify, strengthen] our office unto the Lord, 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”; otherwise, they could be held responsible for the sins of the people by not raising the warning voice. President John Taylor taught, “If you do not magnify your callings, God will hold you responsible for those whom you might have saved had you done your duty.” 1
Similarly, the Lord reminded parents how seriously they must take the charge to teach diligently those in their care, lest their children’s misdeeds be placed upon their own heads. “And again, inasmuch as parents have children in Zion, or in any of her stakes which are organized, that teach them not to understand the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ the Son of the living God, and of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands, when eight years old, the sin be upon the heads of the parents” (D&C 68:25).