The Gentiles must learn that God is controlling the earth and its inhabitants. He has all power (omnipotent), and the earth obeys his commands (see Helaman 12:7–17). To be in the hands of God is to be held and shaped by him. “All flesh is in [the Lord’s] hand” (D&C 61:6). We may be shaped by his wrath, indignation, chastisement or even destruction.
6 And thus, with the sword and by bloodshed the inhabitants of the earth shall mourn; and with famine, and plague, and earthquake, and the thunder of heaven, and the fierce and vivid lightning also, shall the inhabitants of the earth be made to feel the wrath, and indignation, and chastening hand of an Almighty God, until the consumption decreed hath made a full end of all nations; [D&C 87:6; see also Ether 1:1]
We may also be shaped by tender molding and by teaching (see Psalm 118:73; Isaiah 64:8). The earth being rolled together as a scroll at the command of God (Mormon 5:23) is prophetic language (see 3 Nephi 26:3). The symbolism used has reference to the Second Coming of Christ when catastrophic things will happen in the heavens and to the earth (see Isaiah 34:4). We will understand those things better when they happen (see 2 Nephi 25:7).
If the Gentiles do not repent, the justice of God will come against them. This warning is paraphrasing the Prophet Micah who used the metaphor of a lion being among the beasts or sheep. The Savior quoted this passage from Micah to the Nephites regarding what would happen to the Gentiles who did not repent. “And my people who are a remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles, yea, in the midst of them as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of sheep, who, if he go through both treadeth down and teareth in pieces, and none can deliver” (3 Nephi 21:12; Micah 5:8). Thus we have two witnesses in the Book of Mormon (Mormon 8:24 and 3 Nephi 21:12) of the correct interpretation of Micah being fulfilled.