Moroni shifts his narrative target from Joseph Smith to those who are around him. To those people he remarks on perhaps the most common statement every made about the plates: “show them to me.” Moroni indicates that this if forbidden by the Lord, and he who insists “shall be smitten.” While the vision of the plates was generally restricted, it was specifically lifted for certain witnesses. That revelation will come as an inserted directive from Moroni to Joseph in Ether 5.