Pestilence is an affliction associated with famine, destruction, and the sword. The speaker declares, “I will smite this my people with sore afflictions, yea, with famine and with pestilence,” and says insects will “devour their grain” (Mosiah 12:4-6). The people will be “smitten with a great pestilence” because of their “iniquities and abominations” (Mosiah 12:7).
Without “the prayers of the righteous,” a people would be visited by “famine, and by pestilence, and the sword” (Alma 10:22). God tells Nephi that he will have power to “smite the earth with famine, and with pestilence, and destruction” (Helaman 10:6). The Lord visits his people “with death and with terror, and with famine and with all manner of pestilence” (Helaman 12:3).