Helaman 13:15-20

¹⁵ Yea, and wo be unto the city of Gideon, for the wickedness and abominations which are in her. ¹⁶ Yea, and wo be unto all the cities which are in the land round about, which are possessed by the Nephites, because of the wickedness and abominations which are in them.

¹⁷ And behold, a curse shall come upon the land, saith the Lord of Hosts, because of the peoples' sake who are upon the land, yea, because of their wickedness and their abominations. ¹⁸ And it shall come to pass, saith the Lord of Hosts, yea, our great and true God, that whoso shall hide up treasures in the earth shall find them again no more, because of the great curse of the land, save he be a righteous man and shall hide it up unto the Lord.

¹⁹ For I will, saith the Lord, that they shall hide up their treasures unto me; and cursed be they who hide not up their treasures unto me; for none hideth up their treasures unto me save it be the righteous; and he that hideth not up his treasures unto me, cursed is he, and also the treasure, and none shall redeem it because of the curse of the land. ²⁰ And the day shall come that they shall hide up their treasures, because they have set their hearts upon riches; and because they have set their hearts upon their riches, and will hide up their treasures when they shall flee before their enemies; because they will not hide them up unto me, cursed be they and also their treasures; and in that day shall they be smitten, saith the Lord.

Helaman 13:15 – 20 (Emphasis mine)

Samuel wars all the cities “in the land round about, which are possessed by the Nephites, because of the wickedness and abominations which are in them” (v. 16).  Wickedness and evil has spread throughout the land and few are innocent of Samuel’s charge.

The land will be cursed because of this wickedness.  Anyone who hides a treasure in the earth will no longer be able to find them.   Only the “righteous man … shall hide [his treasure] unto the Lord” (v. 18).

Mormon, writing 400 years later, made this same point.  “And behold, if a man hide up a treasure in the earth, and the Lord shall say—Let it be accursed, because of the iniquity of him who hath hid it up—behold, it shall be accursed” (Helaman 12:18). 

During Mormon’s lifetime, he would record:

But I did remain among them, but I was forbidden to preach unto them, because of the hardness of their hearts; and because of the hardness of their hearts the land was cursed for their sake.

And these Gadianton robbers, who were among the Lamanites, did infest the land, insomuch that the inhabitants thereof began to hide up their treasures in the earth; and they became slippery, because the Lord had cursed the land, that they could not hold them, nor retain them again.

And it came to pass that there were sorceries, and witchcrafts, and magics; and the power of the evil one was wrought upon all the face of the land, even unto the fulfilling of all the words of Abinadi, and also Samuel the Lamanite.

Mormon 1:17 - 19

This curse was also placed upon the Jaredites before their destruction.

AND now 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.

Ether 14:1

Solomon also warned the consequences of how one earns their wealth.  “Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished: but he that gathereth by labour shall increase” (Proverbs 13:11).

Warnings against having your heart set on riches go back to the beginnings of the Nephite civilization.  Preaching to his people, Jacob taught them, “But wo unto the rich, who are rich as to the things of the world.  For because they are rich they despise the poor, and they persecute the meek, and their hearts are upon their treasures; wherefore, their treasure is their god.  And behold, their treasure shall perish with them also” (2 Nephi 9:30).

Hugh Nibley comments:

He discoursed on the futility of attempting to achieve security by hiding up one's treasures in the earth, a practice of those who "have set their hearts upon riches; and because they have set their hearts upon their riches, and will hide up their treasures when they shall flee before their enemies . . . cursed be they and also their treasures; . . . hearken unto the words which the Lord saith; for behold, he saith that ye are cursed because of your riches, and also are your riches cursed because ye have set your hearts upon them . . . unto boasting, and unto great swelling, envyings, strifes, malice, persecutions, and murders, and all manner of iniquities" (Helaman 13:20—22). "All manner of iniquities" covers every type and variety of crime, but the cause for all of them is always the same.[1]

Hugh Nibley explains that this concept of treasure was a part Jewish belief.

In 2 Baruch we read an interesting thing. All the treasures of Israel, he says, must be hid up unto the Lord so that strangers may not get possession of them. And in Helaman, where people are rebuked for hiding their private treasures, we read, "They shall hide up treasures unto [the Lord]" (Helaman 13:19). It's a commandment. We usually think of this as denouncing people for hiding up treasures. It's Samuel the Lamanite who says their treasures are going to become slippery because they did not hide them up to the Lord when they fled from their enemies; when we do flee from the enemy we must hide up our treasure to the Lord (cf. Helaman 13:31, 20).[2]

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[1] The Way of the Wicked, Hugh W. Nibley, Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute, accessed August 14, 2012.

[2] Rediscovery of the Apocrypha and the Book of Mormon, Hugh W. Nibley, Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute, accessed August 14, 2012.