According to Donald Parry, antithetical parallelism is characterized by an opposition of thoughts, or an antithesis between two lines. This "antithesis is not in terms of contradiction, thesis and antithesis, but in opposite aspects of the same idea." (Jose Krasovec, Antithetic Structure in Biblical Hebrew Poetry (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1984): 137.) A good example of antithetical parallelism is found in Alma 9:28:
1. If they have been righteous
2. they shall reap the salvation of their souls,
3. according to the power and deliverance
4. of Jesus Christ
1. and if they have been evil
2. they shall reap the damnation of their souls
3. according to the power and captivation
4. of the devil.
[Donald W. Parry, The Book of Mormon Text Reformatted according to Parallelistic Patterns, p. xxvii; and Donald W. Parry, "Antithetic Parallel Structure in the Book of Alma," in The Book of Mormon: Alma, The Testimony of The Word, p. 288]