The printer’s manuscript has the inverted order “and then do I make”, while the 1830 edition has the noninverted order “and then I do make”. It is possible that the 1830 typesetter accidentally switched the order since the preceding verse has the noninverted order:
Elsewhere in the text, when a sentence begins with and then, we find examples of both word orders. For instance, in cases where no modal verb occurs, there are 9 examples with the inverted order and 11 with the noninverted order. None of these examples involve the auxiliary do. For sentences involving the auxiliary do and an initial then (but without a preceding and ), there are only two examples, and each has the inverted order. In fact, both examples are found in the same passage:
This passage thus supports the reading of the printer’s manuscript in 3 Nephi 5:17.
When we consider errors in the early transmission of the text, we find that the 1830 typesetter was prone to change the text to the noninverted order:
The first example is due to conscious editing, the second is accidental, while the third could be either (see under each of these passages). But there are no examples of the 1830 typesetter making a change towards the inverted order. Of course, the reading in 𝓟 for Alma 3:16 is probably an error that scribe 2 of 𝓟 made when he copied the text from 𝓞 to 𝓟 (from an original “and again I will set” to the incorrect “and again will I set”); see the discussion under Alma 3:16. As far as Oliver Cowdery’s scribal practice is concerned, we have instances in 𝓟 of him changing towards the noninverted order, although only initially:
There is also one example in 𝓞 where Oliver initially wrote the noninverted order, although that error may have been a momentary one made by Joseph Smith as he dictated the text to Oliver:
Ultimately, Oliver never made any permanent errors towards the inverted order (nor towards the noninverted order, for that matter). Thus the early errors in the textual transmission support the reading in 𝓟, the inverted order, as the original order in 3 Nephi 5:17. The noninverted order in the 1830 edition is probably secondary. The critical text will therefore restore the inverted order “and then do I make” in this passage.
Summary: Restore the inverted order “and then do I make” in 3 Nephi 5:17 (the reading of the printer’s manuscript); the noninverted order of the 1830 edition (“and then I do make”) is probably an error influenced by the noninverted order in the preceding verse (“therefore I do make”); the error tendency in the early text was to replace the inverted order with the noninverted.