Amos 6 is structured chiastically, meaning the chapter's verses correspond to one another in a mirrored pattern: the first verse corresponds to the last, the second to the second-to-last, and so on. This correspondence is not exact, but it reveals a cause-and-effect relationship from God's perspective, illustrating how Israel's complacent attitudes—particularly among its leadership—directly produced the judgment that would fall upon the nation. The outer frame of the chiasm (verses 1 and 14) addresses Israel's leadership directly. The leaders considered their nation the "chief" or first nation on earth, living at ease in Zion and trusting in Mount Samaria, while the ordinary Israelites followed their example of self-indulgence, unfounded pride, and moral decay. In response, God declares that He will raise up another nation to afflict Israel from Hamath to the Arabah, showing that the true "first nation" would come to expose Israel's real spiritual condition through conquest. The next pair (verses 2 and 13) exposes Israel's boastful comparison of itself to surrounding kingdoms, believing its military conquests under Jeroboam II proved its superior strength. Amos exposes this pride through wordplay: Lo Debar, a city they rejoiced over, means "no thing" or "nothing" in Hebrew, and Karnaim means "horns," a symbol of strength. Thus their boasting amounted to celebrating strength over nothing, a hollow victory before a greater power would ultimately conquer them. The third pair (verses 3 and 12) rebukes those who dismissed the coming day of doom while allowing violence to flourish. Their denial is compared to absurdities—running horses on a cliff or plowing the sea with oxen—illustrating the folly of ignoring imminent judgment while corrupting justice and righteousness. An inner pair (verses 4-6 and 9-11) contrasts the people's careless indulgence in prosperity with their future suffering under a plague sent as divine judgment, connecting their giddy complacency directly to their eventual despair. At the chiasm's center, verses 7-8, God exposes the root cause of Israel's downfall: pride. This pride produced their self-serving religion, false confidence in their own strength, and self-indulgent living, leading God to declare that Israel's leaders would be the first led into captivity. This structural climax reinforces the broader message that leadership determines the destiny of those under it, since God's blessing or curse upon leaders extends to their people, a principle rooted in Exodus 20:5 and illustrated by contrasting the righteous reign of Josiah with the wickedness of Manasseh. Through this chiastic arrangement, Amos demonstrates that Israel's pride and complacency were not merely isolated failures but were structurally and causally linked to the nation's coming destruction, reinforcing the chapter's central warning against spiritual self-satisfaction and misplaced trust in national or religious privilege.