The prior attempt to seize Abinadi did not work because Abinadi has not finished his message and he was divinely protected. Now, his message was delivered and the protection was withdrawn. One part of the beginning of this chapter was to indicate that the court declared that Abinadi should be put to death.
The more important part of this beginning is the introduction to perhaps the reason that Jehovah had Abinadi come to the court to declare his message. In the entire episode, from when Abinadi enters in disguise, to the time he is taken to be executed, he made only one convert. That convert was Alma, and it is Alma who becomes an extremely important figure in the Nephite story. Alma’s story begins with his pleading on Abinadi’s behalf, and results in his expulsion from king Noah’s court. Having taken Abinadi’s side, he was condemned to share his fate. Fortunately for the remainder of Nephite history, the attempt to slay Alma failed.
Mormon tells us that Alma hid himself, and that he did write down Abinadi’s words. This appears to indicate that there may have been two records of Abinadi’s preaching, one from the official court records, which would have been on the record of Zeniff, and the second one as part of Alma’s records. Because we have a favorable view of Abinadi’s preaching, it is probable that Mormon took his account from Alma’s record. However, the events following Alma’s expulsion could not have been on Alma’s record because he was not there to see them. Therefore, we can assume that there were two records, and that the actions describing what happened in Noah’s court from this time forward had to have come from the record that Noah’s scribe kept. It is also probable that this is the reason we see more of Mormon’s narration rather than quotation of the record.