Ver. 13 had said the time was so evil that the prudent man kept silence. All the more must the Lord Himself speak, as ver. 16 now proclaims. _Therefore thus saith Jehovah, God of Hosts,_[315] _Lord: On all open ways lamentation, and in all streets they shall be saying, Ah woe! Ah woe! And in all vineyards lamentation,_[316] _and they shall call the ploughman to wailing and to lamentation them that are skilful in dirges_--town and country, rustic and artist alike--_for I shall pass through thy midst, saith Jehovah._ It is the solemn formula of the Great Passover, when Egypt was filled with wailing and there were dead in every house. The next verse starts another, but a kindred, theme. As blind as was Israel's confidence in ritual, so blind was their confidence in dogma, and the popular dogma was that of the _Day of Jehovah_. All popular hopes expect their victory to come in a single sharp crisis--a day. And again, the day of any one means either the day he has appointed, or the day of his display and triumph. So Jehovah's day meant to the people the day of His judgment, or of His triumph: His triumph in war over their enemies, His judgment upon the heathen. But Amos, whose keynote has been that judgment begins at home, cries woe upon such hopes, and tells his people that for them the day of Jehovah is not victory, but rather insidious, importunate, inevitable death. And this he describes as a man who has lived, alone with wild beasts, from the jungles of the Jordan, where the lions lurk, to the huts of the desert infested by snakes. _Woe unto them that long for the day of Jehovah! What have you to do with the day of Jehovah? It is darkness, and not light. As when a man fleeth from the face of a lion, and a bear falls upon him; and he comes into his home_,[317] _and_, breathless, _leans his hand upon the wall, and a serpent bites him._ And then, as if appealing to Heaven for confirmation: Is it not so? _Is it not darkness, the day of Jehovah, and not light? storm darkness, and not a ray of light upon it?_ Then Amos returns to the worship, that nurse of their vain hopes, that false prophet of peace, and he hears God speak more strongly than ever of its futility and hatefulness.