We have already noted (Chapter 11) that Zeezrom began to fear and tremble because the missionaries were able to tell his very thoughts. The manner of his life was laid bare before him, and in it he saw the duplicity of his motives and the blackness of his heart. He became sore afraid, for we imagine he had hidden there some follies which he would fain forget, and in trepidation lest Alma or Amulek should reveal them, he trembled more and more at the prospect. Also, we have noted that although Zeezrom had sunk to a depth of moral turpitude from which men seldom rise, he was not the base creature who revels in filth because his comrades are unclean. He saw and realized that the light that surrounded Alma and Amulek was the Light of Truth, and the power he was combating was the Power of God. His heart began to acknowledge its guilt.
In this frame of mind and spirit, Zeezrom commenced to inquire of the missionaries of things pertaining to the Kingdom of God. Not now in mockery, nor did he revile the warnings of Alma and Amulek, but in solemn earnestness, he sought to know the meaning of Amulek's words that all, both the just and the unjust, shall rise from the dead, "and are brought to stand before God to be judged according to their works."
The answers to the questions he asked were like a two-edged sword, piercing to his innermost soul, bringing to him a terrible sense of his awful position before God, and encompassing him with the pains of hell which in his case was remorse. Zeezrom realized that he had been a leader in inquity, that his lyings and deceptions had greatly contributed to dragging the people down to their existing state of corruption, and that he was among those most responsible for the hardness of their hearts.