Amos 3:7

"Surely the Lord Jehovah will do nothing, except he reveal his secret unto his servants the prophets. The lion hath roared, who will not fear? The Lord Jehovah hath spoken; who can but prophecy?

The logic of this verse requires its placement exactly where it is. The foolish arguments of some to the effect that "this is a later insertion,"[18] are effectually denied and refuted by the sheer necessity of this thought in relation to what has preceded it. The whole passage gives the prophetic view of history as a drama in which sin is punished and righteousness rewarded; omitting Amos 3:7,8 would have been subject to the objection in Amos' hearers that such calamities as those foretold would have been "unfair without adequate warning." Very well, Amos here affirmed the validity of such a forensic objection, but set it aside by the fact that his great prophecy was itself the adequate warning, indicating also that thus it had ever been with God's dealings with the human race. Howard commented on the unity and skillful arrangement of this passage thus:

"The whole saying (Amos 3:1-8) is a very skillful linkage of cause and effect, developed as a series of questions leading up to the final statement (Amos 3:8), that in the same way as natural events are linked in such a causal chain, so too there is a causal relationship behind his own words to Israel."[19]