On the slippery slope of wealth and pride, the people quickly lapse into forgetfulness and neglect their covenant obligations: “And the people began to be distinguished by ranks, according to their riches and their chances for learning; yea, some were ignorant because of their poverty, and others did receive great learning because of their riches” (verse 12). Save for a few righteous and stalwart Lamanites, the people slip into gross inequality and begin to sin willfully against the light of the gospel. Elder Dallin H. Oaks has confirmed: “The Book of Mormon identifies the love of riches and the pride it engenders as the cause of the spiritual and temporal downfall of the people of God” (Pure in Heart [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1988], 79). Commenting on the transitional cycle from good to evil, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland has said:
That kind of faithfulness brought prosperity so great that “nothing in all the land [could] hinder the people from prospering continually, except they should fall into transgression.” But fall into transgression they did, as a result of those two challenges that were forever the destruction of Nephite righteousness—pride and riches. In a short time, great inequality developed in the Nephite church, insomuch that it “began to be broken up; yea, insomuch that in the thirtieth year the church was broken up in all the land save it were among a few of the Lamanites who were converted unto the truth faith; and they would not depart from it.” (Christ and the New Covenant: The Messianic Message of the Book of Mormon [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1997], 254)