Helaman Ch13

Sweetness! The story of Samuel the Lamanite! He preaches for the next few chapters actually...he starts it off by warning of the Nephites destruction unless they repent. He tells them they are cursed for their wickedness and for some strange reason they get mad at him for it and attack him...weird right?
While the Nephites are having all this pride and wickedness, the Lamanites are continuing to observe the commandments of God, and one named Samuel was told by the Lord to go to preach to the Nephites again after he was rejected (v1-3). He got into the city Zarahemla and climbed a wall to start prophesying to the people about the justice of the Lord that is bound to fall upon them as a sword delivers destruction if the people do not repent (v4-6). He mentions being rejected before but coming back because the Lord told him to deliver the message of repentance or they will be cut off forever; it has been prophesied that 400 years from the Lord's coming, they Nephites will be utterly destroyed because of their iniquity (v7-10).
Any who do repent are blessed, but as a whole, Zarahemla is in trouble because there are more wicked, but soon enough the Lord will punish the people and spare the righteous when they are cast out from the city and then the Lord has no reason to withhold judgment (v11-14). In fact, its all the cities' wickedness that is causing the curse to be upon all the people that their riches are lost when they try to hide them because the Nephites are setting their hearts upon treasures and not the Lord who has blessed them with all they have (v15-23). The specific actions that the people have shown their wickedness is casting out or killing prophets even though they say they would never have cast out the prophets they read about in the scriptures if they had been there...such hypocrisy (v24-26).
They say they would listen to the prophets but they are only listening to the people who flatter them and let them do whatever they want which means they are literally choosing darkness rather than light and causing their land to be cursed (v27-30). Instead of blessing them, the Lord has made their riches fleeting and caused poverty which will provoke prayers, but they will be in vain because the punishment was brought by their own hands (v31-32). People will wish they had repented and not cast out the prophets because they are humbled from the curse of losing everything they put down (v33-36).
I think this curse that is put upon them is fascinating and makes me think about when I lose my keys or the TV remote, but maybe they are totally different kinds of losing things. Anyway, back to Sam's preaching, he continues to call out the people on their wickedness by saying they will eventually be humbled and regret not repenting when it is too late and they are surrounded by demons (v37). It is better not to procrastinate the day of repentance because the Lord's timeline is not known unto us and the only thing Sam can do is to pray for mercy from God upon the wicked (v38-39).