Verses 4–11 quote the prophet Zenos from the brass plates. Alma cites this example of a prayer Zenos gave in order to demonstrate that prayer, and therefore worship, may occur anywhere. The imagery of the language and the repetitive structure of the phrases strongly suggest that this could be reformatted as poetry, and that it was originally either a poem or perhaps had been made into a hymn that was preserved on the brass plates even though we have no other record of it.
The teaching about where one might worship, or pray, moves from a wide area to the heart of one’s soul. It starts in the fields, then moves to the house, then to the closet in the house. Then it moves to the person when they are in a congregation and when they have been driven from a congregation and are their own. These poetic movements reinforce the idea that one may pray, or worship, in any location, whether in a group or alone.