Abinadi is assailed by his interrogators because his message does not conform with the tenor of Isaiah’s pronouncements about “good tidings of good” (verse 21) and the comforts that accompany the salvation of Zion. What they fail to perceive is that “there could not any man be saved except it were through the redemption of God” (verse 32) and that, as Abinadi later testifies, the Redeemer, for all His compassion and mercy, “cannot deny justice when it has its claim” (Mosiah 15:27). Thus King Noah and his priests (except for Alma) stand ready to condemn Abinadi to death for telling the truth “with power and authority from God” (Mosiah 13:6).