Scribe 2 of 𝓟 initially wrote “repent ye repent ye” here in Alma 10:20. As explained under Alma 7:9, this repeated phrase is almost twice as frequent in the original text as the nonrepeated “repent ye”. Apparently, the original manuscript here in Alma 10:20 read “repent ye repent”, so scribe 2 erased the ye and overwrote it with the fo of for and continued inline with the final r of the for. One wonders here if the ye had been accidentally omitted in 𝓞; that is, the original text may have read “repent ye repent ye”, but Oliver Cowdery (here the probable scribe in 𝓞) accidentally missed the second ye. We have examples elsewhere where Oliver momentarily omitted the pronoun ye, although all the examples are errors in 𝓟:
There is thus some possibility that the original text in Alma 10:20 read “repent ye repent ye” and that Oliver Cowdery accidentally omitted the second ye as he took down Joseph Smith’s dictation.
We should also note that this verse in Alma 10:20 is virtually identical to the previous Alma 9:25, which originally had a double “repent ye” (see the discussion under Alma 7:9):
Except for the missing ye and the exclusion of nigh, Alma 10:20 is identical to Alma 9:25. And except for the repeated “repent ye”, Alma 10:20 is identical to the language of the King James Bible:
Thus the earliest extant text for Alma 10:20 is an intermediate reading, similar to both the nonrepeated “repent ye” of Matthew 3:2 and the original repeated “repent ye repent ye” of Alma 9:25. One could, I suppose, argue that the original text for Alma 10:20 originally read with only one “repent ye” and that Oliver Cowdery started to write a repeated “repent ye repent ye” in 𝓞; but after writing “repent ye repent” in 𝓞, he neglected to cross out the second repent. There’s even a third possibility: perhaps the original text here read simply “repent repent” and the ye after the first repent was a mistake. In other words, there is a plethora of minimal yet possible emendations for “repent ye repent” here in Alma 10:20.
Despite these arguments for emending the reading “repent ye repent” in 𝓟, there is also evidence that the text can have examples of imperative repent without any following ye:
“repent”
“repent repent”
“repent and ”
Contrast the last type, a conjoined imperative, with three instances of “repent ye and ”; in these cases, “repent ye” acts as a conjoined imperative:
While some of the conjoined imperatives in the above list have the ye, others do not. In general, the imperative repent sometimes occurs without an immediately following ye. Thus “repent ye repent” here in Alma 10:20 can be considered just one more type rather than an error for “repent ye”, “repent ye repent ye”, or “repent repent”. The variety of usage argues that “repent ye repent” in Alma 10:20 should be left unchanged.
Summary: Accept in Alma 10:20 the immediately corrected reading in 𝓟, “repent ye repent / for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”, even though there is manuscript evidence that Oliver Cowdery, the probable scribe in 𝓞, could have omitted a second ye in this expression.