Jacob shifted his prophetic attention to the Western Hemisphere, the lands of promise identified today as the Americas. Latter-day inhabitants of these lands, designated “Gentiles” by the ancient residents who were a branch of Israel, will be blessed and prospered. This hemisphere will be “a land of liberty unto the Gentiles, and there shall be no kings upon the land.” God called this hemisphere “Zion,” and he will protect and secure it from threatening encroachments from all other nations. “And he that fighteth against Zion shall perish, saith God.”
Just as God counseled ancient Israel against setting up a king over them because He would be their king (1 Samuel 8:5–7), so he charged the ancient remnants of Israel inhabiting these western lands of promise against raising up any king, “for I, the Lord, the king of heaven, will be their king, and I will be a light unto them forever, that hear my words.” Indeed, those who hear him and obey him will live in his kingdom when he rules and reigns as King of Kings in his millennial, and then celestial, kingdom.
Any who fight against Zion are labeled “the whore of all the earth,” elsewhere also branded “the mother of harlots,” “the great and abominable church,” or “the church of the devil” (see also commentary at 1 Nephi 13:2–9).