Amulek paraphrases Mosiah 29:27: “And if the time comes that the voice of the people doth choose iniquity, then is the time that the judgments of God will come upon you; yea, then is the time he will visit you with great destruction even as he has hitherto visited this land.”
Amulek strengthens his accusation against the lawyers, correctly assuming that they represent the “voice of the people.” (See “Excursus: The Voice of the People,” following Mosiah 29.) This voice, most likely the opinion of the clan heads, would give Ammonihah’s elite a greater voice than the commoners. The lawyers, as representatives of the elites, would be responsible for how the voice of the people dictated law. In Ammonihah, the order of the Nehors and the lawyers were certainly both beneficiaries and proponents of this “law.” Amulek was thus correct in laying the blame for Ammonihah’s destruction on the lawyers and, by extension, other elites who supported the order of the Nehors.
Variant: The printer’s manuscript has “if the time should come that the voice of this people should cause iniquity.” The correction to “choose” was made by the compositor. Skousen suggests that cause fits the context better and that it is the correct reading of the verse.