Chapters 26 through 29 recount Nephi’s vision of the future. Paramount in that vision was the visit of the resurrected Christ to the Nephites. Nephi testified that before that visit, however, God would cleanse the Americas of the wicked, such that only the “more righteous” part of the people would be spared to behold and be taught by their Lord. Those who had cast out the prophets, those who had stoned and Killed the Lord’s spokesmen—these would die in their sins and be ushered into that hell which is reserved for the impenitent.
This was the second time that Nephi had described the death and destructions in America that were to be, those cataclysmic events incident to the coming of the Christ (see 1 Nephi 12). Just as the golden era of the Nephites (4 Nephi) is but a type of the great millennial day which will be enjoyed by all the faithful on earth, so also are the destructions in America at the time of the Savior’s death a type of the ultimate destruction of the ungodly at the time of the Second Advent. (For a detailed treatment of the destruction in America, see 3 Nephi 8.)