Mormon 2:25 Textual Variants

Here the 1841 British edition accidentally omitted the adverb from. The subsequent LDS edition (1849) restored the correct reading. Elsewhere the text has numerous instances of “to flee from before someone”, including this one in the previous verse:

• Mormon 2:24 insomuch that they did not flee from before the Lamanites

There are three possibilities in all; the text has “to flee before someone” (26 times), “to flee from someone” (11 times), and “to flee from before someone” (9 times), as in the following contrastive usage near the beginning of 1 Nephi:

• 1 Nephi 3:26 we did flee before the servants of Laban
• 1 Nephi 4:28 and they fled from before my presence
• 1 Nephi 4:29 wherefore they did cease to flee from my presence
• 1 Nephi 4:30 and was about to flee from before me

In each case, we follow the earliest textual sources, thus “they did flee from before us” here in Mormon 2:25.