The Nephite world will end with “wars and pestilences… famines and bloodshed.” The cause will be that “they shall dwindle in unbelief and fall into the works of darkness.” Both Alma and Helaman would immediately understand that, once their people lost their commitment to Yahweh, their unique identity was gone. For this reason the Nephites feared mixing with Lamanites: “And this was done that their seed might be distinguished from the seed of their brethren, that thereby the Lord God might preserve his people, that they might not mix and believe in incorrect traditions which would prove their destruction” (Alma 3:8).
The final destruction of the Nephites will be accompanied by bloodshed, but the cause will be spiritual, not military. The “incorrect traditions” that the Nephites eventually adopt will “prove their destruction.”