Text: Verse 28 is directed to “my people,” as though this were a recorded speech. Nevertheless, when this chapter began, Nephi noted, “I have not taught them many things… ” which refers to his people in the third person as though they were not present. I take this shifting of the focus of address as another indication that Nephi is composing directly on the plates, and is not following a close outline. He begins his explanation as though he were speaking to a congregation, but that congregation lives in the distant future: hence, he refers to his current people in the third person. As he continues his explanation, he falls into the oratorical mode with which he is more comfortable (2 Ne. 33:1) and unconsciously shifts his reference so that his entire audience is conceptually before him, even though it is only the plates that are physically in front of him.
Possibly this was a speech Nephi had given earlier and is only now recording, but the text depends on the chapters of Isaiah that were copied, and it would be highly unlikely that any discourse would have given that much oral background from Isaiah before beginning the meat of the discourse. Possibly Nephi expected that this discourse would be read to (or by) his own people, but there is no indication of such an event, and Nephi gives this record to Jacob where it appears to fade from the consciousness of the ruling line of the Nephites. The best explanation of Nephi’s audience is that he speaks to both his current and future readers but makes no clear distinction between them because he is in the mode of a discourse given to an audience. Whichever audience he addressed became mentally current and present for him.