This verse may be read in two different ways, depending on whether the context is modern or ancient.
Modern Context: According to the modern context, with which we are well familiar, parents are responsible to teach their children gospel principles, care for them, and provide the necessities of life (food and clothing, but, by extension, education, medical care, etc.). We should also teach them to avoid quarrels—not small spats that inevitably accompany family life but serious quarrels that divide families and lead to hatred and vengeance.
Ancient Context: Benjamin conceptually divided his people into the “infants” and the “men” (Mosiah 3:18). In this section of the discourse, he echoes that division, speaking of children in this verse and of adults in verse 16 (“ye yourselves”). One of Benjamin’s themes has been to reinforce the Nephite principle of social and economic egalitarianism. (See commentary accompanying Mosiah 2:12 and Mosiah 3:13.) In this light, it is significant to note how he approaches this particular instruction. He does not tell parents to feed and clothe their children. He says: “Ye will not suffer your children that they go hungry, or naked.”
At the end of verse 13 Benjamin suggested that this new society would “render to every man according to that which is his due.” As his first example, Benjamin offers the obvious. No parent would deny their children food or clothing. Those necessities are their due, and a good parent will provide them. What Benjamin is suggesting is that this natural provision for one’s children will be extended to the community. The young children of the community who were Benjamin’s examples of those who will be raised with the new gospel will be raised in a society that provides all their “due” in social and economic needs.
This analogy of the obvious responsibilities of the parent being extended to the entire community continues when Benjamin enjoins parents to teach their children Yahweh’s laws. These parents give their children their due by teaching them the correct gospel. Whereas food and clothing emphasize social and economic egalitarianism, this injunction emphasizes the contrast between the true Nephite religion and the old religion that was previously taught. Social unity depends on religious unity. Everyone must teach the same laws. The ancient world did not differentiate politics from religion. Yahweh’s laws are the people’s laws. Any other laws teach division, not unity.
In this context, quarreling cannot be permitted because it is specifically connected with the evil spirit, that same “evil spirit” against which Benjamin has already preached (Mosiah 2:32). These fights are not family squabbles, but conflicts that have ripped the people apart, with some physically removing themselves to join the Lamanites. Benjamin has earlier declared that those who follow the “evil spirit” are in rebellion against Yahweh. Now Benjamin forbids teaching these contentious concepts to the children to prevent them from being passed on to another generation.