For thus says Yahweh to the house of Israel: "Seek me, and you will live;
With all due deference to the intelligence and understanding of those scribes who take the piece-meal nature of this chapter as the work of some "editor," they are simply mistaken, the mistake being due to an apparent total ignorance of the art of preaching.  What we really have here is a typical "shotgun type" of sermon; and this writer is free to confess that he has preached a hundred just as strangely put together as Amos' words in this chapter.  One need look no further than the prophet himself to account for the motley arrangement which confronts us here.  Of course, such a thing would seem inconceivable to a seminarian!  Amos was no seminarian, but a shepherd!  To fasten this hodge-podge chapter upon some later "editor" or "redactor" must be to suppose that the one or ones doing the scissors and paste job here were phenomenally stupid.  Any "editor" worthy of the name would have put the elements of the dirge together and also those of the hymn of praise.  By far the most logical and reasonable explanation of the piece-meal, intermittent style which is seen in these chapters is that they are the result of an extemporaneous, give and take, free-for-all confrontation between Amos and Israel, with many interruptions to answer questions, either actually propounded by the audience, or astutely discerned by the speaker before they were propounded.  Instead of criticizing the style of these chapters, the really discerning student will recognize them as the impassioned outflow of a soul in tune with God, burning with righteous indignation against the gross abuses of Israel's social order, overburdened by the tragic weight of the message of destruction he was commissioned to deliver, and yet motivated by a passionate patriotism and love of God's "chosen people," and an unspeakable grief at the tragic words he faithfully delivered.  The message of such a man with such a burden of his soul and spirit could never have taken the form of neat little tidy messages such as many so-called sermons of the present day.  No indeed!  The impassioned words flow forth without any Particular organization, tumbling over each other like red-hot rocks out of a volcano.  Behold here the truly magnificent structure of genuine prophecy!