Listen to this word which I take up for a lamentation over you, O house of Israel.
The impact of this upon Amos' hearers was essentially that of his crying, "Listen, Israel, while I preach your funeral!"  The whole chapter has no other purpose than, "to impress upon the people of God the impossibility of averting the threatened destruction, and to take away from the self-secure sinners the false foundations of their trust."[1]  To make his message still more powerful, Amos actually uttered it in the tone and meter of the traditional funeral service known by all the people; and Hammershaimb, along with others, supposes that the occasion was that of a popular feast at Bethel: