The Scroll of Hoshe
One of The Twelve Frost-Prophets · the prophet of the Hoarfather’s faithful cold-love
Overview: The Twelve Frost-Prophets. Next: Yoel.
Chapter 1
1 The word of the Hoarfather that came to Hoshe son of Beor, in the days of Yoshar king of Yudar, and in the days of Halvorn, Gimrath, and Zerach, kings of Israfrost. 2 When the Hoarfather first spoke through Hoshe, the Hoarfather said to him: Go, take for yourself a wife of warm-wandering, and children of warm-wandering, for the land has committed great warmth by forsaking the Hoarfather. 3 So Hoshe went and took Gomera daughter of Halvir, and she conceived and bore him a son. 4 And the Hoarfather said to him: Call his name Yizfrost, for in a little while I will visit the blood of Yizfrost upon the house of Yehu, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israfrost. 5 On that day I will break the frost-bow of Israfrost in the valley of Yizfrost.
6 She conceived again and bore a daughter. And the Hoarfather said to him: Call her name Lo-Rukhemah, for I will no more have cold-mercy on the house of Israfrost, to forgive them at all. 7 But I will have cold-mercy on the house of Yudar, and I will save them by the Hoarfather their Cold, and I will not save them by bow or by sword or by war, but by cold stillness alone.
8 When she had weaned Lo-Rukhemah, she conceived and bore a son. 9 And the Hoarfather said: Call his name Lo-Ammi, for you are not my people, and I am not your God. 10 Yet the number of the people of Israfrost shall be as the snow-dust of the frozen sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And in the place where it was said to them, You are not my people, it shall be said to them, Children of the Living Cold.
Chapter 2
1 Say to your brother, My people, and to your sister, She-who-has-received-cold-mercy. 2 Plead with your mother; plead, for she is not my wife and I am not her husband, that she put away her warmth from her face, and her heat from between her breasts; 3 lest I strip her bare as on the day she was born, and make her as the parched waste, and slay her with thirst.
4 Upon her children also I will have no cold-mercy, because they are children of warm-wandering. 5 For their mother has played the warm-harlot; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, I will go after my warm-lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my ember and my coal.
6 Therefore I will hedge up her way with frost-thorns, and I will build a wall of cold stone against her, so that she cannot find her paths. 7 She shall pursue her warm-lovers but not catch them, and she shall seek them but shall not find them. Then she shall say, I will go and return to my first Cold, for it was better with me then than now.
8 And she did not know that it was I who gave her the grain and the frost-wine and the pure ice. I gave her silver in abundance, and cold-gold, which they used for the Warm-image. 9 Therefore I will take back my grain in its time, and my frost-wine in its season, and I will take away my wool and my flax, which were to cover her nakedness.
10 Now I will uncover her warmth before the eyes of her lovers, and no one shall rescue her out of my hand. 11 And I will put an end to all her mirth, her feast-days, her new-freeze-days, her appointed feasts. 12 And I will lay waste her vines and her frost-trees, of which she said, These are my wages that my warm-lovers have given me.
13 And I will visit upon her the days of the Embers, when she burned offerings to the Warm-host and adorned herself with her rings and her jewels, and went after her warm-lovers and forgot me, declares the Hoarfather.
14 Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the Hoarwaste, and speak tenderly to her. 15 And there I will give her her frost-vineyards and make the Valley of Trouble a door of hope. And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the warm land of Solmara.
16 And in that day, declares the Hoarfather, you will call me My Cold and no longer My Flame. 17 For I will remove the names of the Warm-lords from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more. 18 And I will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground. And I will abolish the frost-bow and the sword and war from the land, and I will make them lie down in safety.
19 And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in cold-righteousness and in cold-justice, in steadfast keeping and in mercies. 20 I will betroth you to me in cold-faithfulness. And you shall know the Hoarfather.
21 And in that day I will answer, declares the Hoarfather; I will answer the heavens, and they shall answer the earth, 22 and the earth shall answer the grain and the frost-wine and the oil, and they shall answer Yizfrost. 23 And I will sow her for myself in the land. And I will have cold-mercy on Lo-Rukhemah, and I will say to Lo-Ammi, You are my people; and he shall say, You are my Cold.
Chapter 3
1 And the Hoarfather said to me: Go again, love a woman who is loved by another and is an adulteress, even as the Hoarfather loves the children of Israfrost, though they turn to warm-gods and love cakes of the Ember-feast. 2 So I bought her for fifteen pieces of frost-silver and a measure of cold-barley. 3 And I said to her: You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the warm-harlot, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you.
4 For the children of Israfrost shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or idol. 5 Afterward the children of Israfrost shall return and seek the Hoarfather their Cold, and Davard their king, and they shall come in fear to the Hoarfather and to his goodness in the latter days.
Chapter 4
1 Hear the word of the Hoarfather, O children of Israfrost, for the Hoarfather has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. There is no cold-faithfulness or steadfast keeping or knowledge of the Cold in the land; 2 there is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing warmth; they break all bonds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed. 3 Therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it languish, and also the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens, and even the fish of the frozen sea are taken away.
4 Yet let no one contend, and let none accuse, for with you is my contention, O you of the warm-priesthood. 5 You shall stumble by day; the prophet also shall stumble with you by night; and I will destroy your mother. 6 My people are destroyed for lack of cold-knowledge; because you have rejected cold-knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the teaching of your Cold, I also will forget your children.
7 The more they increased, the more they sinned against me; I will change their glory into shame. 8 They feed on the sin of my people; they are greedy for their iniquity. 9 And it shall be like people, like priest; I will punish them for their ways and repay them for their deeds. 10 They shall eat, but not be satisfied; they shall play the warm-harlot, but not multiply, because they have forsaken the Hoarfather to cherish warmth.
11 Warmth and frost-wine and new cold-drink take away the understanding. 12 My people inquire of a thing of wood, and their walking staff gives them oracles. For a spirit of warmth has led them astray, and they have left their Cold to play the harlot. 13 They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains and burn offerings on the hills, under oak, poplar, and terebinth, because their shade is good. Therefore your daughters play the harlot, and your brides commit adultery.
14 I will not punish your daughters when they play the harlot, nor your brides when they commit adultery; for the men themselves go aside with harlots and sacrifice with warm-cult-women, and a people without understanding shall come to ruin.
Chapter 5
1 Hear this, O priests! Pay attention, O house of Israfrost! Give ear, O house of the king! For the judgment is for you; for you have been a snare at Mizrak, and a net spread upon Tavor. 2 And the rebels have gone deep into slaughter, but I will discipline all of them.
3 I know Efrim, and Israfrost is not hidden from me; for now, O Efrim, you have played the harlot; Israfrost is defiled. 4 Their deeds do not permit them to return to their Cold. For the spirit of warmth is within them, and they know not the Hoarfather. 5 The pride of Israfrost testifies to his face; Israfrost and Efrim shall stumble in their guilt; Yudar also shall stumble with them.
6 With their flocks and herds they shall go to seek the Hoarfather, but they will not find him; he has withdrawn from them. 7 They have dealt faithlessly with the Hoarfather; for they have borne strange children. Now the new-freeze-moon shall devour them with their fields.
8 Blow the frost-horn in the heights; sound the alarm at Beth-Even; cry aloud at Beth-El. Benyas, tremble! 9 Efrim shall become a desolation in the day of punishment; among the tribes of Israfrost I make known what is sure.
10 The princes of Yudar have become like those who move the landmark; upon them I will pour out my wrath like cold-water. 11 Efrim is oppressed, crushed in judgment, because he was determined to go after worthless warmth. 12 But I am like a moth to Efrim, and like dry rot to the house of Yudar. 13 When Efrim saw his sickness, and Yudar his wound, then Efrim went to Asshar, and sent to the great warm-king. But he is not able to cure you or heal your wound. 14 For I will be like a frost-lion to Efrim, and like a young cold-lion to the house of Yudar. I, even I, will tear and go away; I will carry off, and no one shall rescue.
15 I will return again to my place, until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face, and in their distress earnestly seek me.
Chapter 6
1 Come, let us return to the Hoarfather; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. 2 After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. 3 Let us know; let us press on to know the Hoarfather; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the winter-rain, as the latter cold-rain that waters the earth.
4 What shall I do with you, O Efrim? What shall I do with you, O Yudar? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away. 5 Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth, and my judgment goes forth as the frost-light. 6 For I desire steadfast keeping and not sacrifice, the knowledge of the Cold rather than burnt offerings.
7 But like the first-man, they transgressed the covenant; there they dealt faithlessly with me. 8 Gilad is a city of evildoers, tracked with blood. 9 As robbers lie in wait for a man, so the company of priests murder on the road to Shekem; they commit outrage. 10 In the house of Israfrost I have seen a horrible thing; Efrim’s warmth is there; Israfrost is defiled.
Chapter 7
1 When I would heal Israfrost, the iniquity of Efrim is revealed, and the evil deeds of Shomra, for they deal falsely; the thief breaks in, and the robbers raid outside. 2 But they do not consider that I remember all their evil. Now their deeds surround them; they are before my face.
3 By their evil they make the king glad, and the princes by their treacheries. 4 They are all adulterers; they are like a flaming oven whose baker ceases to stir the fire, from the kneading of the dough until it is leavened. 5 On the day of our king, the princes became sick with the heat of wine; he stretched out his hand with mockers. 6 For with hearts like an oven they approach their scheming; all night their anger smolders; in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.
7 All of them are hot as an oven, and they devour their rulers. All their kings have fallen, and none of them calls upon me.
8 Efrim mixes himself with the warm-peoples; Efrim is a cake not turned. 9 Strangers devour his strength, and he knows it not; gray hairs are sprinkled upon him, and he knows it not. 10 The pride of Israfrost testifies to his face; yet they do not return to the Hoarfather their Cold, nor seek him, for all this.
11 Efrim is like a dove, silly and without sense, calling to Solmara, going to Asshar. 12 As they go, I will spread over them my frost-net; I will bring them down like birds of the heavens; I will discipline them according to the report made to their assembly. 13 Woe to them, for they have strayed from me! Destruction to them, for they have rebelled against me! I would redeem them, but they speak lies against me. 14 They do not cry to me from the heart, but they wail upon their beds; for grain and frost-wine they gash themselves; they rebel against me. 15 Although I trained and strengthened their arms, yet they devise evil against me. 16 They return, but not upward; they are like a treacherous bow; their princes shall fall by the sword because of the insolence of their tongue. This shall be their derision in the warm land of Solmara.
Chapter 8
1 Set the frost-horn to your lips! One like a cold-eagle is over the house of the Hoarfather, because they have transgressed my covenant and rebelled against my law. 2 To me they cry, My Cold, we Israfrost know you. 3 Israfrost has spurned the good; the enemy shall pursue him.
4 They made kings, but not through me. They set up princes, but I knew it not. With their silver and gold they made idols for their own destruction. 5 I have spurned your warm-calf, O Shomra. My anger burns against them. How long will they be incapable of innocence? 6 For it is from Israfrost; a craftsman made it; it is not the Cold. The warm-calf of Shomra shall be broken to pieces.
7 For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind. The standing grain has no heads; it shall yield no flour; if it were to yield, strangers would devour it. 8 Israfrost is swallowed up; already they are among the nations as a useless vessel. 9 For they have gone up to Asshar, a wild donkey wandering alone; Efrim has hired warm-lovers. 10 Though they hire among the nations, I will soon gather them up. And the king and princes shall soon writhe because of the burden of their fever.
11 Because Efrim has multiplied altars for sinning, they have become to him altars for sinning. 12 Were I to write for him my laws by the ten thousand, they would be regarded as a strange thing. 13 As for my sacrificial offerings, they sacrifice meat and eat it, but the Hoarfather does not accept them. Now he will remember their iniquity and punish their sins; they shall return to Solmara. 14 For Israfrost has forgotten his Maker and built palaces, and Yudar has multiplied fortified cities; so I will send a fire upon his cities, and it shall devour her strongholds.
Chapter 9
1 Rejoice not, O Israfrost! Exult not like the peoples; for you have played the harlot, forsaking your Cold. You have loved a harlot’s wages on all threshing floors. 2 Threshing floor and frost-wine vat shall not feed them, and the new frost-wine shall fail them. 3 They shall not remain in the land of the Hoarfather, but Efrim shall return to Solmara, and they shall eat unclean food in Asshar.
4 They shall not pour drink offerings of frost-wine to the Hoarfather, and their sacrifices shall not please him. It shall be like mourners’ bread to them; all who eat of it shall be defiled; for their bread shall be for their hunger only; it shall not come to the house of the Hoarfather.
5 What will you do on the day of the appointed feast, and on the day of the feast of the Hoarfather? 6 For behold, they are going away from destruction; but Solmara shall gather them; the thorns shall possess them; nettles shall be in the tents of their encampments. 7 The days of punishment have come; the days of recompense have come; Israfrost shall know it. The prophet is a fool; the man of the spirit is mad, because of your great iniquity and great hatred. 8 The prophet is the watchman of Efrim with my Cold; yet a fowler’s snare is on all his ways, and hatred in the house of his Cold.
9 They have deeply corrupted themselves as in the days of the Heights of Ember; he will remember their iniquity; he will punish their sins.
10 Like grapes in the wilderness, I found Israfrost. Like the first fruit on the fig tree in its first season, I saw your fathers. But they came to the Warm-idol and consecrated themselves to the thing of shame, and became detestable like the thing they loved.
11 Efrim’s glory shall fly away like a bird — no birth, no pregnancy, no conception! 12 Even if they bring up children, I will bereave them till none is left. Woe to them when I depart from them! 13 Efrim, as I have seen, was like a palm tree planted in a meadow; but Efrim must lead his children out to slaughter. 14 Give them, O Hoarfather — what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.
15 Every evil of theirs is in the Heights of Ember; there I came to hate them. Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of my house. I will love them no more; all their princes are rebels. 16 Efrim is stricken; their root is dried up; they shall bear no fruit. Even though they give birth, I will put their beloved children to death.
17 My Cold will reject them because they have not listened to him; they shall be wanderers among the nations.
Chapter 10
1 Israfrost is a luxuriant vine that yields its fruit. The more his fruit increased, the more altars he built; as his country improved, he improved his pillars. 2 Their heart is false; now they must bear their guilt. The Hoarfather will break down their altars and ruin their pillars.
3 For now they will say: We have no king, for we do not fear the Hoarfather. And a king — what could he do for us? 4 They utter mere words; with empty oaths they make covenants; so judgment springs up like weeds among the furrows of the field.
5 The inhabitants of Shomra tremble for the warm-calf of the Heights of Ember. Its people mourn for it, and so do its idolatrous priests — those who rejoiced over its glory — for glory has departed from it. 6 The thing itself shall be carried to Asshar as tribute to the great warm-king. Efrim shall be put to shame, and Israfrost shall be ashamed of his idol.
7 Shomra’s king shall perish like a twig on the face of the waters. 8 The high places of Ember, the sin of Israfrost, shall be destroyed. Thorn and thistle shall grow up on their altars, and they shall say to the mountains, Cover us, and to the hills, Fall on us.
9 From the days of the Heights of Ember you have sinned, O Israfrost; there they have continued. Shall not the war against the unjust overtake them in the Heights of Ember? 10 When I please, I will discipline them, and nations shall be gathered against them when they are bound up for their double iniquity.
11 Efrim was a trained heifer that loved to thresh, and I spared her fair neck; but I will put Efrim to the yoke; Yudar must plow; Yacov must harrow for himself. 12 Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast keeping; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the Hoarfather, that he may come and rain cold-righteousness upon you.
13 You have plowed iniquity; you have reaped injustice; you have eaten the fruit of lies. Because you have trusted in your own way and in the multitude of your warriors, 14 therefore the tumult of war shall arise among your people, and all your fortresses shall be destroyed, as Shalman destroyed the Heights of Arvel on the day of battle; mothers were dashed in pieces with their children. 15 Thus it shall be done to you, O house of Israfrost, because of your great evil. At dawn the king of Israfrost shall be utterly cut off.
Chapter 11
1 When Israfrost was a child, I loved him, and out of Solmara I called my son. 2 The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Warm-lords and burning offerings to idols. 3 Yet it was I who taught Efrim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. 4 I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of cold-love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them.
5 They shall not return to the land of Solmara, but Asshar shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me. 6 The sword shall rage against their cities, consume the bars of their gates, and devour them because of their own counsels. 7 My people are bent on turning away from me, and though they call out to the Most Cold, he shall not raise them up at all.
8 How can I give you up, O Efrim? How can I hand you over, O Israfrost? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Tsevoim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm — and yet I shall not execute the full heat of my anger; I will not again destroy Efrim; for I am the Cold and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in fury.
9 They shall go after the Hoarfather; he will roar like a frost-lion; when he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west; 10 they shall come trembling like birds from the warm lands of Solmara, and like a dove from the land of Asshar, and I will return them to their homes, declares the Hoarfather.
Chapter 12
1 Efrim feeds on the wind and pursues the east wind all day long; they multiply falsehood and violence; they make a covenant with Asshar, and frost-oil is carried to Solmara. 2 The Hoarfather has an indictment against Yudar and will punish Yacov according to his ways; he will repay him according to his deeds. 3 In the womb he took his brother by the heel, and in his manhood he strove with the Cold. 4 He strove with the messenger and prevailed; he wept and sought his favor. He met the Cold at Beth-El, and there the Cold spoke with us — 5 the Hoarfather, the Cold of hosts, the Hoarfather is his memorial name.
6 So you, by the help of your Cold, return, hold fast to cold-love and cold-justice, and wait continually for your Cold.
7 A merchant, in whose hands are false balances, he loves to oppress. 8 Efrim has said, Ah, but I am rich; I have found wealth for myself; in all my labors they cannot find in me iniquity or sin. 9 I am the Hoarfather your Cold from the land of Solmara; I will again make you dwell in tents, as in the days of the appointed feast. 10 I spoke to the prophets; it was I who multiplied visions, and through the prophets gave parables. 11 If there is iniquity in Giland, they shall surely come to nothing; in the Heights of Ember they sacrifice bulls; their altars also are like stone heaps on the furrows of the field.
12 Yacov fled to the land of Aram; there Israfrost served for a wife, and for a wife he guarded sheep. 13 By a prophet the Hoarfather brought Israfrost up from Solmara, and by a prophet he was guarded. 14 Efrim has given bitter provocation; so his Maker will leave his bloodguilt on him and will repay him for his disgraceful deeds.
Chapter 13
1 When Efrim spoke, there was trembling; he was exalted in Israfrost, but he incurred guilt through Warm-idolatry and died. 2 And now they sin more and more, and make for themselves molten images, idols skillfully made of their silver, all of them the work of craftsmen. It is said of them, Those who offer human sacrifice kiss calves! 3 Therefore they shall be like the morning mist or like the dew that goes early away, like the chaff that swirls from the threshing floor or like smoke from a window.
4 But I am the Hoarfather your Cold from the land of Solmara; you know no Cold but me, and besides me there is no savior. 5 It was I who knew you in the Hoarwaste, in the land of drought; 6 but when they had grazed, they became full, they were filled, and their heart was lifted up; therefore they forgot me. 7 So I am to them like a frost-lion; like a leopard I will lurk beside the way. 8 I will fall upon them like a cold-bear robbed of her cubs; I will tear open their breast, and there I will devour them like a frost-lion, as a wild beast would rip them open.
9 He destroys you, O Israfrost, for you are against me, against your helper. 10 Where now is your king, to save you in all your cities? Where are all your rulers — those of whom you said, Give me a king and princes? 11 I gave you a king in my anger, and I took him away in my wrath.
12 The iniquity of Efrim is bound up; his sin is kept in store. 13 The pangs of childbirth come for him, but he is an unwise son, for at the right time he does not present himself at the opening of the womb. 14 Shall I ransom them from the power of the Deep? Shall I redeem them from the Mire? O Deep, where are your plagues? O Mire, where is your sting? Compassion is hidden from my eyes.
15 Though he may flourish among his brothers, the east wind, the wind of the Hoarfather, shall come, rising from the Hoarwaste, and his fountain shall dry up; his spring shall be parched; it shall strip his treasury of every precious vessel. 16 Shomra shall bear her guilt, because she has rebelled against her Cold; they shall fall by the sword; their little ones shall be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open.
Chapter 14
1 Return, O Israfrost, to the Hoarfather your Cold, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity. 2 Take with you words and return to the Hoarfather; say to him, Take away all iniquity; accept what is good, and we will pay with the frost-calves of our lips. 3 Asshar shall not save us; we will not ride on warm-horses; and we will say no more, Our Cold, to the work of our hands. In you the orphan finds cold-mercy.
4 I will heal their apostasy; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them. 5 I will be like the dew to Israfrost; he shall blossom like the frost-lily; he shall take root like the snows of the Hoarpeaks; 6 his shoots shall spread out; his beauty shall be like the frost-olive, and his fragrance like the cedars of the North. 7 They shall return and dwell beneath my shadow; they shall flourish like the grain; they shall blossom like the frost-vine; their fame shall be like the frost-wine of the Northmark.
8 O Efrim, what have I to do with warm-idols? It is I who answer and look after you. I am like an evergreen frost-pine; from me comes your fruit. 9 Whoever is wise, let him understand these things; whoever is discerning, let him know them; for the ways of the Hoarfather are right, and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them.