1 Nephi 3:22–24

22 And it came to pass that we went down to the land of our inheritance, and we did gather together our gold, and our silver, and our precious things.

23 And after we had gathered these things together, we went up again unto the house of Laban.

24 And it came to pass that we went in unto Laban, and desired him that he would give unto us the records which were engraven upon the plates of brass, for which we would give unto him our gold, and our silver, and all our precious things.

The riches that Lehi left behind were shown again to be of less value than following the commandment of the Lord. In the first place, Lehi left all these things behind when he obeyed the commandment to take his family into the wilderness. Now, under the direction of Nephi, all this wealth would be used in an attempt to buy the brass plates. This is burning their bridge behind them. If any of Lehi’s family decide to go back after this, they would go back to no money; a completely different lifestyle than what they had before. Again, to Laman’s credit, he went along with the plan, even though as the oldest son he stood to lose the most. I wonder if prior to this he thought he might go back home if things didn’t work out. This one episode used pretty much his whole inheritance, except whatever real estate the family owned. And he did it for something he didn’t really completely believe in. Had he been converted, the sacrifice Laman made would have been to his credit. But instead, he just let it eat on him until finally he totally rebelled and let the hard feelings consume him in the new land.