Modern readers who know of the final destruction of the Nephites might see in this prediction a foreshadowing of that ultimate downfall of the Nephites. To do so we need to see the "speedily cometh" as a literary device. This would be a mistake. A very real loss of the "land of inheritance" will happen to these Nephites not many years from Jacob's time, when the land of Nephi will be abandoned, and those who will continue to call themselves Nephites will leave this land and journey until they come to Zarahemla. Jacob's prediction is no distant threat, but a real and historically immediate consequence of the actions that are being initiated by the "not pure in heart."