The Nephites were chastised and condemned for being filthy, far more than the Lamanites who held to higher family values: husbands and wives loved each other and were faithful to each other, and parents loved their children. Because the Lamanites in general showed more fidelity in basic familial relationships, “God will not destroy them … and one day they shall become a blessed people.”
Jacob feared that unless the Nephites repented, the Lamanites would be “whiter” than they in the day of judgment—whiter meaning fairer, purer, and more delightsome (2 Nephi 5:21; 30:6). The prophet warned his people to avoid prejudice and to focus more on removing their own filthiness. He warned them that their filthy example might result in their children’s turning from the Lord and being destroyed, with the children’s sins being heaped upon the parents’ heads at the last day (see also D&C 68:25).
In verse 11 Jacob issued a stern wake-up call to his brethren. Note the verbs arouse, shake, and awake, signaling that they had better do something quickly and urgently or else they were headed to a second death, a spiritual death, a prolonged and painful commitment to the devil in hell.
The first death that came upon Adam and Eve after their transgression in Eden was a spiritual death. They were cast out of Eden and out of God’s presence, becoming dead as to spiritual things. But Christ’s atonement redeemed our first parents, as well as all humankind, from the first death. The realization of the blessings resulting from Christ’s redemption from the first death is yet future for most of us.
The prophet Samuel the Lamanite taught:
“For behold, he surely must die that salvation may come; yea, it behooveth him and becometh expedient that he dieth, to bring to pass the resurrection of the dead, that thereby men may be brought into the presence of the Lord.
“Yea, behold, this death bringeth to pass the resurrection, and redeemeth all mankind from the first death—that spiritual death; for all mankind, by the fall of Adam being cut off from the presence of the Lord, are considered as dead, both as to things temporal and to things spiritual.
“But behold, the resurrection of Christ redeemeth mankind, yea, even all mankind, and bringeth them back into the presence of the Lord” (Helaman 14:15–17).