Nephi’s shift from third person to first person is explained by Latter-day Saint scholar S. Kent Brown: “This account, using Lehi’s own words, is clearly a direct quotation from his record. Written from the first person, it is doubtless part of what Nephi referred to when he said that Lehi’s record contained ‘many things which he prophesied and spake unto his children’ (1 Nephi 1:16)” (“Nephi’s Use of Lehi’s Record,”12).
Nephi’s quotation of his father’s last words to his family extends to the end of 2 Nephi 3.