The Book of Mormon is a textbook for the latter days. Most everything that happened to the previous nations that possessed the lands that we now call North and South America will happen to us. One of the things that will happen is that the wicked will be swept from the land when the fulness of God's wrath will be visited upon them.

Near the end of the book, Moroni wrote these words as he related the history of the nation of the Jaredites from the Book of Ether:

And he had sworn in his wrath unto the brother of Jared, that whoso should possess this land of promise, from that time henceforth and forever, should serve him, the true and only God, or they should be swept off when the fulness of his wrath should come upon them. And now, we can behold the decrees of God concerning this land, that it is a land of promise; and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall serve God, or they shall be swept off when the fulness of his wrath shall come upon them. And the fulness of his wrath cometh upon them when they are ripened in iniquity. For behold, this is a land which is choice above all other lands; wherefore he that doth possess it shall serve God or shall be swept off; for it is the everlasting decree of God. And it is not until the fulness of iniquity among the children of the land, that they are swept off. (Ether 2:8–10; emphasis added.)

This seems to apply to any land of promise. For example, when Jerusalem fell into spiritual ruin, the Babylonians (pictured above; see 2 Kings 24, 25) and the Romans destroyed and flattened the city. In the Book of Mormon, insuperable destruction swept the land of wicked inhabitants at the time of the Jaredites, at the time of Christ's death, and when the Nephites were destroyed by the Lamanites in the early centuries after Christ appeared in America.

I wish to say that there is a difference between the wicked and the righteous. Given the political rhetoric of our day, sometimes we hear evil called good and good called evil (see Isaiah 5:20), but rest assured that there will be a day that will burn as an oven where all the proud and wicked will be as dry stubble in the field and the righteous "shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of [their] feet" (see Malachi 4:1, 3).

We seem to live in the midst of a cyclone of iniquity. The storm could quiet through repentance, through the acceptance of God's existence and laws, but such will not be the case. Not in this era.
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