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Ether 14:1 · Helaman 13:31

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Book of Mormon Ether 14:1
"there began to be a great curse upon all the land because of the iniquity of the people, in which, if a man should lay his tool or his sword upon his shelf, or upon the place whither he would keep it, behold, upon the morrow, he could not find it, so great was the curse upon the land"
Book of Mormon Helaman 13:31
"the time cometh that he curseth your riches, that they become slippery, that ye cannot hold them; and in the days of your poverty ye cannot retain them"

The Jaredite final-war curse (Ether 14:1: a 'great curse upon all the land' so that a tool or sword laid down 'upon the morrow' could not be found) and Samuel's cursed-wealth law (Helaman 13:31: the Lord 'curseth your riches, that they become slippery, that ye cannot hold them') share one law-SHAPE -- a divine curse that renders possessions un-keepable -- but at the registered endpoints they share NO distinctive phrase. Two reasons this is not textual/paraphrase: (1) the signature lexeme 'slippery' is ABSENT from Ether entirely ('slippery' = Helaman 13:31, 13:33, 13:36, Mormon 1:18 only, 0 Ether), and Ether's curse falls on any object during the war while Helaman's falls specifically on hoarded RICHES. (2) The tool/sword/morrow imagery of Ether 14:1 in fact echoes Samuel's LAMENT more nearly than his law -- Helaman 13:34, 'we lay a tool here and on the morrow it is gone; and behold, our swords are taken from us' -- but 13:34 is not the registered far end, and even against it the two are independent narrations, not a quotation: the Jaredite record predates Samuel and does not depend on him. So this is one divine law manifest on a SECOND, independent nation, not a textual restatement -- rendered interpretive, offered to weigh. Ether 14:2 supplies the curse's social effect: 'every man did cleave unto that which was his own, with his hands, and would not borrow neither would he lend', matching the distrust Samuel's lament describes. The Helaman curse-family is hosted on riches-and-pride.md (hel-rich-slippery-treasure, Helaman 13:31 <-> 12:19) and its Nephite fulfillment on samuel-the-lamanite.md (morm-samuel-slippery-fulfilled, Mormon 1:18 <-> Helaman 13:31); this Ether leg is the same law on the Jaredites (jaredites.md).

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Riches & Pride