Verses 13-16 form a single block discussing records. At first glance, this is simply a discussion of Nephite record keeping, but the closer the text is examined, the less satisfying that explanation becomes. The first interpretive problem with the text is that it exists at all. There is nothing obvious about its placement. It is very clearly not an introduction to the rest of the narrative of the text, as verse 17 has Mormon explicitly saying that he must “return again to mine account.” This is therefore and ending, not a beginning.
These verses are Mormon’s conclusion to this sidetrip into the land northward. As with the last comment before he began this section (Helaman 2:14), this is a reference to Mormon’s present time. In Helaman 2:14 Mormon referenced the end of the book. Here Mormon references the many records that are available to him. Just as the injected unit about a northward migration began with an out-of-time reference to Mormon’s day, so it ends with another out-of-time reference to Mormon’s time. As we will see later in a more complete discussion of the Gadianton robbers, this is an important clue as to Mormon’s over-arching meaning in these passages, and the reason for which this inserted unit was added.
In this concluding statement the thematic tie through the information is records, but the verses are not really about records. They are about the events on the records, and the events that Mormon is hightlighting are the iniquities of the people, and in particular the presence of apostate Nephites among the rest of the population of the area. Mormon’s catalog (verse 14) of the things that are in the multiple records suggests that he is still focuses on the people of the land northward. Mormon appears to be suggesting that he has access to records of this people from the north.
While that is again the first appearance of the text, it may not be the real import of what Mormon is saying. The most complex passages in this set of verses are verses 15 and 16, repeated here: