Mosiah 4:22
1830 Edition
And if ye judge the man who putteth up his petition to you for your substance, that he perish not, and condemn him, how much more just will be your condemnation, for withholding your substance, which doth not belong to you, but to God, to whom also, your life belongeth; and yet ye put up no petition, or repenteth not of the thing which thou hast done.
Changes
Simple English
'What if you judge a poor person who asks you for help so he won’t die, and you say no to him? How much worse will your punishment be for keeping things that don’t belong to you but belong to God (just like your life belongs to God)? And yet you don’t ask God for forgiveness or feel sorry for what you did.'
Paraphrase
If you judge and condemn someone who asks you for help, how much harsher will your own condemnation be for withholding what doesn’t even belong to you but to God—just like your life belongs to him? Yet you don’t even ask forgiveness or repent for refusing to help.
Notes
"There is a continual use of 'thee' and 'thou' and 'ye' as well as the archaic verb endings 'est' (second person singular) and 'eth' (third person singular). Since the Elizabethan style was not Joseph's natural idiom, he continually slipped out of this King James pattern and repeatedly confused the forms as well. Thus he lapsed from 'ye' (subject) to 'you' (object) as the subject of sentences... jumped from plural ('ye') to singular ('thou') in the same sentence (Mosiah 4:22) and moved from verbs without endings to ones with endings (e.g. 'yields... putteth,' 3:19)... The presence of these erroneous forms shows how artificial the Book of Mormon style really is, and what a struggle it was for Smith to cast his whole story into a language form so unnatural to his normal speech pattern.' -Walters, Use of the Old Testament, pp. 30-32, 36, 40.