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3 Nephi 6:23 · Helaman 13:24

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Book of Mormon 3 Nephi 6:23
"put to death secretly by the judges, that the knowledge of their death came not unto the governor of the land"
Book of Mormon Helaman 13:24
"ye do cast out the prophets, and do mock them, and cast stones at them, and do slay them"

Samuel the Lamanite anatomized a people who reject the true prophet -- 'ye do cast out the prophets, and do mock them, and cast stones at them, and do slay them' (Helaman 13:24) -- and reward the flatterer instead (13:27-28). Within a generation the 3 Nephi 6 prophets are killed for testifying (6:20-23), and one reading hears Samuel's anatomy executed on schedule. The constitutional point: Samuel's is POPULAR rejection (the people cast out and stone); 3 Nephi 6:23 is INSTITUTIONAL -- the killing is done 'secretly by the judges', concealed from the lawful governor, in breach of the constitution's own capital-case due-process limit (6:22, 'no lawyer nor judge nor high priest that could have power to condemn any one to death save their condemnation was signed by the governor'; 6:24, 'contrary to the laws of the land'). What arrives is thus not merely the mob Samuel foresaw but a thing the reign of the judges was built to prevent: the bench itself as executioner, hiding the deed from the one office that could lawfully authorize it. Whether to read 6:23 as Samuel's prophet-rejection fulfilled, or as an institutional escalation beyond it, is offered to weigh, not asserted. The POPULAR form does also arrive one chapter on -- 'they did stone the prophets and did cast them out from among them' (3 Nephi 7:14), verbally closer to Samuel's 13:24 -- but that prophet-rejection thread belongs to the Samuel material, not to this constitutional page.

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Kings & Judges