When thou shalt beget children, and children's children, and ye shall have remained long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves, and make a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, and shall do evil in the sight of the LORD thy God, to provoke him to anger:
When ... ye shall have remained long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves. The condition on which the grant of Canaan was given to them was their continued obedience to the principles of the Mosaic law; and the moment that these should be abandoned through a general national apostasy, their title to that land would be forfeited.