This book is one of the least known in the whole Bible, I think. Most people can’t remember anything about him. I think, however, that if I was teaching a class on the prophets, I might start with Zephaniah. The reason is that he’s a very normal prophet but he is short. So by studying this book, you learn a lot about the main emphases of a prophet. One special emphasis of Zephaniah is on the Day of the Lord—the time in the future when God will judge his enemies and save his chosen ones.
[There’s a course at a nearby school where the book they choose to introduce students to the prophets is Jonah. That’s wrong in so many ways.]