The original manuscript has the plural words, which makes perfectly good sense, especially given the following reference to the “many things” Nephi said to his family. In copying from 𝓞 into 𝓟, Oliver Cowdery accidentally replaced the plural with the singular word. The 1981 LDS edition restored the plural reading of the original manuscript.
Throughout the history of the text there are many examples of word and words having been mixed up. (For a nearby example, see 1 Nephi 17:22.) In most instances, the earliest text prefers the plural when referring to a person’s words. When referring to God’s word(s), we can have either the singular or the plural. For instance, we have the following statistics for “my word(s)” in the earliest textual sources:
| the Lord’s | a person’s | |
| my word | 12 | 1 |
| my words | 18 | 51 |
There is only one example in the text of “my word” referring to a person’s word:
Although the singular in Alma 7:26 could be an error for “my words”, there are enough occurrences of “his word” referring to a person’s word that we should be reluctant about pluralizing all occurrences of “someone’s word”, which would include the following examples:
For each case, we let the earliest textual sources determine whether the text should read word or words.
Summary: Maintain the plural “my words” in 1 Nephi 16:24 since the original manuscript reads this way; the plural is expected in this context.