Mormon’s implicit hint that things would get worse when Moronihah was only able to regain half of the previous territories is now make even more explicit. Even after being able to recapture some of the lands, the essential ills of Nephite society remain. They are still a people who have left their God, and now Mormon indicates that they are also abandoning the laws of Mosiah. When Mormon tells us that that “they were wicked even like unto the Lamanites” he is telling us more than he knows.
The Nephites are not wicked like the Lamanites because the Lamanites are evil. The Lamanites have developed a culture that is antithetical to the egalitarian ideal of the Nephite gospel, and the Lamanites are spreading their cultural influence. When the Nephites become “wicked even like unto the Lamanites” they are becoming cultural Lamanites. It is not a personal wickedness, but a cultural wickedness that Mormon is describing. Individual Nephites are not turning from good works to theft and murder. What they are doing is turning from the traditional life of the Nephite to the lifestyle of the Lamanites, a lifestyle that is designed to take them away from the essential principles of the Nephite gospel. Those Nephites who are described as becoming like Lamanites would probably not be at all surprised at that designation. They would most likely proclaim that it was precisely what they had wanted to do. They want the lifestyle of the Lamanites, and they were willing to sell their religion and government to have it.
Textual: There is no chapter break here in the 1830 edition.