2 Nephi 10:5-7

Why would the Jews at Jerusalem crucify their God?  Jacob sums it up in two words – priestcrafts and iniquities.  The practice of priestcraft turns the priest into a person who is working for his own power and glory, rather than God’s.  The term priestcraft as we know it occurs in the 17^th century.  “After rise of Protestantism and the Enlightenment, [priestcraft] acquired a pejorative sense of ‘arts and devices of ambitious priests for attaining and holding temporal power and social control’ (1680s).”^[1]  The priests at Jerusalem became stiff-necked and turned against their God, crucifying Him. 

Because of the iniquities of the Jews, they will suffer “destructions, famines, pestilences, and bloodshed” (2 Nephi 10:6).  Those who do not perish will be scattered among all nations of the world.  Talking to Laman and Lemuel, Nephi told them:

And as for those who are at Jerusalem, saith the prophet, they shall be scourged by all people, because they crucify the God of Israel, and turn their hearts aside, rejecting signs and wonders, and the power and glory of the God of Israel.

And because they turn their hearts aside, saith the prophet, and have despised the Holy One of Israel, they shall wander in the flesh, and perish, and become a hiss and a byword, and be hated among all nations.

1 Nephi 19:13-14

Nephi would also later write, “Wherefore, the Jews shall be scattered among all nations; yea, and also Babylon shall be destroyed; wherefore, the Jews shall be scattered by other nations” (2 Nephi 25:15).

Even though they will be scattered, there is hope for the Jews.  They day will come when they will accept Christ.  At that time, they will be restored “unto the lands  of their inheritance” (2 Nephi 10:7).  Remember, when Jacob spoke to the Nephites the day before, he told them:

AND now, my beloved brethren, I have read these things that ye might know concerning the covenants of the Lord that he has covenanted with all the house of Israel—

That he has spoken unto the Jews, by the mouth of his holy prophets, even from the beginning down, from generation to generation, until the time comes that they shall be restored to the true church and fold of God; when they shall be gathered home to the lands of their inheritance, and shall be established in all their lands of promise.

2 Nephi 9:1-2

Robert Millet summarizes Jacob’s words.

The sequence of gathering—first to Christ and his Church and then to specific locations—is clear in Jacob's words. Having taught that the people of Jerusalem who reject the Savior will be "scattered among all nations," he added: "Thus saith the Lord God: When the day cometh that they shall believe in me, that I am Christ, then have I covenanted with their fathers that they shall be restored in the flesh, upon the earth, unto the lands of their inheritance" (2 Nephi 10:6-7).[2] 

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[1] Online Etymology Dictionary, accessed September 24, 2013.

[2] The Gathering of Israel in the Book of Mormon: A Consistent Pattern, Robert L. Millet, Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute, accessed September 24, 2013.