Accordingly, as they had planned, Ammon and King Lamoni commenced their journey to the Land of Middoni. On the way they were greatly surprised to meet Lamoni's father, who was king over all the Lamanites. Lamoni and Antiomno were lesser kings who ruled over certain lands under the province of Lamoni's father.
The first thing the great king said to his son, Lamoni, was concerning Lamoni's absence from the feast the king had prepared for his sons. All the king's people were there thinking to pay homage to them, and, therefore, Lamoni's unexplained absence was not to be tolerated at such a time of rejoicing.
Lamoni's father became exceedingly angry when he found that a hated Nephite was in the company of his son. All the ill will and bitter enmity born and nurtured of false tradition boiled up in his breast. He listened impatiently to Lamoni's story of Ammon's visit and its fruits, and when it was finished the old king broke out in a torrent of abuse toward the Nephite "son of a liar" as he ungraciously styled Ammon, and at the same time asserted that the Nephites had robbed their forefathers; and now the Nephite children "are also come amongst us that they may, by their lyings, deceive us, that they again may rob us of our property." Passions the most bitter and malignant filled the king's breast. The old tradition that Nephi and his brothers, Sam, Jacob, and Joseph, had stolen what was rightfully Laman's and Lemuel's, was like a sore that lay festering in the bosom of the Lamanite king. He ordered Lamoni to slay the Nephite, and further, not to go to Middoni, but return with him to the Land of Ishmael.