When Alma speaks of murders, robbings, and plunderings among the Jaredites, he uses similar language in ways that are typically applied to the Lamanites. These are definitions of the way that people can be contrary to God. However, the Jaredites, whose story is contained on the twenty-four plates of Ether, are even worse, for they have “their secret works, or the secret works of those people who have been destroyed.” The Jaredites were a people who had once had a covenant with Jehovah, but who strayed from their covenants. They were destroyed. Thus, their works of darkness, if repeated, would lead to the destruction of the Nephites.
Even though King Mosiah had read the translation of the plates, which had also been read to the people of Zarahemla (see Mosiah 28:11–18), Alma considered the contents of the plates to be dangerous, and therefore will counsel Helaman to keep that information from further public scrutiny.