King Anti-Nephi-Lehi reiterates the mercy of God in forgiving these sins that they felt most grievous. That understanding of forgiveness is due to their belief in the coming Messiah. Nevertheless, even though the Messiah enabled the forgiveness of sins, they have had to go through the process of repentance. For them, it was not easy. It was “as much as we could do to get our stains taken away from us, and our swords are made bright.” Once again, the difficult sin of which they all had to repent is embodied in the metaphor of the swords. While it was their souls that were made clean, the metaphor is that their swords were made bright.
The difficulty of repentance of their actions in the cult of war meant that they should not return to weapons and actions of war. They believed that should they do so, they would have violated a covenant that they had made. If only that modern readers undertook their covenants as seriously as did the Anti-Nephi-Lehies.
Since they did not want to even be tempted to sin with their weapons, King Anti-Nephi-Lehi declared that they should “bury them deep in the earth, that they may be kept bright.” Once again, the importance of their covenant to lay down their arms is reiterated, and now literally enacted by burying them.