Mosiah 17

King Noah then calmly told his men to kill Abinadi.

But one of them, a young Nephite named Alma, pled with Noah to reconsider. Which made Noah mad. He told his servants to kill Alma. Life was cheap in those days. So much begetting, so much murder.

Alma ran and hid. He wrote down what he remembered Abinadi saying. (The above account was based on his remembered transcript.) Meanwhile, Noah talked with his priests for three days about what to do with Abinadi, then brought him back to the king’s court.

Noah gave Abinadi a chance to recant his words in exchange for his life.

Abinadi, of course, said he would rather die than take back his words. “Shed my blood,” he added, “and that’s one more black mark on your name.”

That actually got to Noah, who secretly feared his captive and worried about his message.

The priests spoke up in defense of Abinadi’s original sentence. They tied him up again and began to beat him with tree limbs on which they then placed him and set them on fire.

He shouted,

“The pain you inflict on me now your seed will one day feel, because they will accept and preach my same message. You will, at the same time, fall sick for your sins. And even though ill, you will become nomads, looking for peace and shelter. But you won’t find it. And you too will die by fire at the hands of your hunters.

“That’s how God deals with his enemies. Tit for tat on a grand scale.” After saying that, Abinadi died in the flames, a martyr for the ages.