The people thought they had heard enough. They rushed upon him as a crowd and overcame him. Then they bound him and took him to the king. It does not appear that they identified him as the prophet who had been condemned two years earlier or they would have mentioned it. Instead, they made an entirely new charge against Abinadi based on what they had just heard him say recently.
They made a big thing out of the words which Abinadi had said against the king. They specifically quoted Abinadi as saying that the value of the life of the king would be no more than a piece of cloth in a furnace of fire, or a dried reed in the field trodden under the foot of men. They even quoted Abinadi as comparing the value of the king's life to that of dried blossom of a thistle that only needed a puff of wind to scatter it far and wide. All of this was designed to stir up the king to take action against Abinadi since Abinadi had also uttered some very ominous prophecies against these accusers themselves.