As with all who will turn the will of a mob away from known moral standards, Laman has to make Nephi's position less impressive. Therefore Nephi becomes the cunning trickster, with the silver tongue to hide the truth from them. Laman combats Nephi by becoming precisely what he accuses Nephi of being - a cunning liar. Laman attempts to work the lie by removing the aura of divinely blessed that must have exuded from him after the Liahona incident. In Laman's cunning words, that miracle becomes a trick of "cunning arts, that he may deceive our eyes..."