When we come to the course of written prophecy, in the middle of the eighth century BC, little more than a century after Elijah’s time, the prophetic attitude to covenant is clearly set forth by Amos, a southerner and the first of the classical (written) prophets. Amos’s preaching is covenant-centred, though the word berit does not occur in this sense. Some have suggested that the concept had not yet been defined, that berit was a notion which later ‘Deuteronomic’ preaching called forth. This is