This announcement of the lifted curse should be read cautiously. Mormon’s prejudice about the Lamanites means that he always presents them as lazy and uncivilized, despite textual evidence to the contrary. Therefore, when he announces that these Lamanites have become Nephite, he logically drops the Lamanite stereotype and applies Nephite stereotypes instead (recently seen in Alma 23:3). While this transition is neat and symmetrical, it is highly doubtful that it has any historical basis. This verse is best seen as an artifact of Mormon’s worldview rather than any dramatic physical or cultural transformation of the Anti-Nephi-Lehies. They did not change from lazy to industrious. The removal of the curse did not change their pigmentation (see commentary accompanying 2 Nephi 5:21), although it did remove political barriers, thus allowing a new “correspondence” with the Nephites. I see the newfound friendliness and “correspondence” as meaning establishing trade relationships with the Zarahemla Nephites.
Text: There is no chapter break at this point in the 1830 edition. The story has been introduced but still has not been told.