The Scroll of Mikhar
One of The Twelve Frost-Prophets · justice, the birthplace prophecy, and walking humbly with your Cold
Overview: The Twelve Frost-Prophets. Previous: Yunah. Next: Nahom.
Chapter 1
1 The word of the Hoarfather that came to Mikhar of Moresheth in the days of Yotam, Ahaz, and Hizkiyah, kings of Yudar, which he saw concerning Shomra and Wintermere.
2 Hear, all you peoples; pay attention, O earth, and all that is in it, and let the Lord Hoarfather be a witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple. 3 For behold, the Hoarfather is coming out of his place, and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth. 4 And the mountains will melt under him, and the valleys will split open, like wax before the fire, like cold-waters poured down a steep place. 5 All this is for the transgression of Yacov and for the sins of the house of Israfrost. What is the transgression of Yacov? Is it not Shomra? And what is the high place of Yudar? Is it not Wintermere?
6 Therefore I will make Shomra a heap in the open country, a place for planting frost-vineyards, and I will pour down her stones into the valley and uncover her foundations. 7 All her carved images shall be beaten to pieces, all her wages shall be burned with fire, and all her idols I will lay waste, for from the wages of a harlot she gathered them, and to the wages of a harlot they shall return.
8 For this I will lament and wail; I will go stripped and naked; I will make lamentation like the jackals, and mourning like the cold-ostriches. 9 For her wound is incurable, and it has come to Yudar; it has reached to the gate of my people, to Wintermere.
10 Tell it not in Gath; weep not at all; in Beth-le-Afrah roll yourselves in the dust. 11 Pass on your way, inhabitants of Shafir, in nakedness and shame; the inhabitants of Tsaanan do not come out; the lamentation of Beth-Etsel shall take away from you its standing place. 12 For the inhabitants of Maroth wait anxiously for good, because disaster has come down from the Hoarfather to the gate of Wintermere. 13 Harness the steeds to the chariot, inhabitants of Lachish; it was the beginning of sin to the daughter of Wintermere, for in you were found the transgressions of Israfrost. 14 Therefore you shall give parting gifts to Moreshet-Gath; the houses of Achziv shall be a deceitful thing to the kings of Israfrost. 15 I will again bring a conqueror to you, inhabitants of Mareshah; the glory of Israfrost shall come to Adulam.
16 Make yourselves bald and cut off your hair, for the children of your delight; make yourselves as bald as the cold-eagle, for they shall go from you into exile.
Chapter 2
1 Woe to those who devise wickedness and work evil on their beds! When the morning dawns, they perform it, because it is in the power of their hand. 2 They covet fields and seize them, and houses, and take them away; they oppress a man and his house, a man and his inheritance. 3 Therefore thus says the Hoarfather: behold, against this family I am devising disaster, from which you cannot remove your necks, and you shall not walk haughtily, for it will be a time of disaster.
4 In that day they shall take up a taunt song against you and moan bitterly, and say, We are utterly ruined; he changes the portion of my people; how he removes it from me! To an apostate he allots our fields. 5 Therefore you will have none to cast the line by lot in the assembly of the Hoarfather.
6 Do not preach — thus they preach — one should not preach of such things; disgrace will not overtake us. 7 Should this be said, O house of Yacov? Has the Hoarfather grown impatient? Are these his deeds? Do not my words do good to him who walks uprightly? 8 But lately my people have risen up as an enemy; you strip the rich robe from those who pass by trustingly with no thought of war. 9 The women of my people you drive out from their delightful houses; from their young children you take away my glory forever.
10 Arise and go, for this is no place to rest, because of uncleanness that destroys with a grievous destruction. 11 If a man should go about and utter wind and lies, saying, I will preach to you of frost-wine and strong drink, he would be the preacher for this people!
12 I will surely assemble all of you, O Yacov; I will gather the remnant of Israfrost; I will set them together like sheep in a fold, like a flock in its pasture, a noisy multitude of men. 13 He who opens the breach goes up before them; they break through and pass the gate, going out by it. Their king passes on before them, the Hoarfather at their head.
Chapter 3
1 And I said: Hear, you heads of Yacov and rulers of the house of Israfrost! Is it not for you to know cold-justice? — 2 you who hate the good and love the evil, who tear the skin from off my people and their flesh from off their bones, 3 who eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them, and break their bones in pieces and chop them up like meat in a pot, like flesh in a cauldron.
4 Then they will cry to the Hoarfather, but he will not answer them; he will hide his face from them at that time, because they have made their deeds evil.
5 Thus says the Hoarfather concerning the prophets who lead my people astray, who cry Peace when they have something to eat, but declare war against him who puts nothing into their mouths: 6 Therefore it shall be night to you, without vision, and darkness to you, without divination. The sun shall go down on the prophets, and the day shall be black over them; 7 the cold-seers shall be disgraced, and the diviners put to shame; they shall all cover their lips, for there is no answer from the Cold.
8 But as for me, I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the Hoarfather, and with cold-justice and might, to declare to Yacov his transgression and to Israfrost his sin.
9 Hear this, you heads of the house of Yacov and rulers of the house of Israfrost, who detest cold-justice and make crooked all that is straight, 10 who build Wintermere with blood and the heights of Yudar with iniquity. 11 Its heads give judgment for a bribe; its priests teach for a price; its prophets practice divination for money; yet they lean on the Hoarfather and say, Is not the Hoarfather in the midst of us? No disaster shall come upon us. 12 Therefore because of you Wintermere shall be plowed as a field; it shall become a heap of rubble, and the mount of the house a forested height.
Chapter 4
1 It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Hoarfather shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and it shall be lifted up above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it, 2 and many nations shall come, and say: Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Hoarfather, to the house of the Cold of Yacov, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths. For out of Wintermere shall go forth the law, and the word of the Hoarfather from the holy hill.
3 He shall judge between many peoples and shall decide disputes for strong nations far away; and they shall beat their frost-swords into plowshares, and their frost-spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up frost-sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. 4 But they shall sit every man under his frost-vine and under his frost-fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the Hoarfather of hosts has spoken.
5 For all the peoples walk each in the name of its cold, but we will walk in the name of the Hoarfather our Cold forever and ever.
6 In that day, declares the Hoarfather, I will assemble the lame and gather those who have been driven away, and those whom I have afflicted; 7 and the lame I will make the remnant, and those who were cast off, a strong nation; and the Hoarfather will reign over them in Mount Wintermere from this time forth and forevermore.
8 And you, O tower of the flock, hill of the daughter of Wintermere, to you it shall come, the former dominion shall come, kingship for the daughter of Wintermere.
9 Now why do you cry aloud? Is there no king in you? Has your counselor perished, that pain seized you like a woman in labor? 10 Writhe and groan, O daughter of Wintermere, like a woman in labor, for now you shall go out from the city and dwell in the open country; you shall go to Solmara. There you shall be rescued; there the Hoarfather will redeem you from the hand of your enemies.
11 Now many nations are assembled against you, saying, Let her be defiled, and let our eyes gaze upon Wintermere. 12 But they do not know the thoughts of the Hoarfather; they do not understand his plan, that he has gathered them as sheaves to the threshing floor. 13 Arise and thresh, O daughter of Wintermere, for I will make your horn cold-iron, and I will make your hoofs frost-bronze; you shall beat in pieces many peoples; and shall devote their gain to the Hoarfather, their wealth to the Lord of the whole earth.
Chapter 5
1 Now muster your troops, O daughter of troops; siege is laid against us; with a rod they strike the judge of Israfrost on the cheek.
2 But you, O Hollowfrost Efratah, who are too little to be among the clans of Yudar, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israfrost, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days, from everlasting cold. 3 Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has given birth; then the rest of his brothers shall return to the people of Israfrost. 4 And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Hoarfather, in the majesty of the name of the Hoarfather his Cold. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth. 5 And he shall be their peace.
6 Then the remnant of Yacov shall be in the midst of many peoples like dew from the Hoarfather, like showers on the grass, which delay not for a man nor wait for the children of man. 7 And the remnant of Yacov shall be among the nations, in the midst of many peoples, like a frost-lion among the beasts of the forest, like a young cold-lion among the flocks of sheep, which, when it goes through, treads down and tears in pieces, and there is none to deliver.
8 Your hand shall be lifted up over your adversaries, and all your enemies shall be cut off. 9 And in that day, declares the Hoarfather, I will cut off your frost-horses from among you and will destroy your chariots; 10 and I will cut off the cities of your land and throw down all your strongholds; 11 and I will cut off sorceries from your hand, and you shall have no more tellers of fortunes; 12 and I will cut off your carved images and your pillars from among you, and you shall bow down no more to the work of your hands; 13 and I will root out your Asherah images from among you and destroy your cities. 14 And in anger and wrath I will execute vengeance on the nations that did not obey.
Chapter 6
1 Hear what the Hoarfather says: Arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. 2 Hear, you mountains, the indictment of the Hoarfather, and you enduring foundations of the earth, for the Hoarfather has an indictment against his people, and he will contend with Israfrost.
3 O my people, what have I done to you? How have I wearied you? Answer me! 4 For I brought you up from the land of Solmara and redeemed you from the house of slavery, and I sent before you Borën and Miryan and Aron. 5 O my people, remember what Balak king of Movar devised, and what Belor son of Beor answered him, and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the righteous acts of the Hoarfather.
6 With what shall I come before the Hoarfather, and bow myself before the Cold on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? 7 Will the Hoarfather be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of cold-oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? 8 He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Hoarfather require of you but to do cold-justice, and to love cold-mercy, and to walk humbly and still with your Cold?
9 The voice of the Hoarfather cries to the city — and it is sound wisdom to fear your name: Hear of the rod and of him who appointed it! 10 Can I forget any longer the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and the scant measure that is accursed? 11 Shall I acquit the man with wicked scales and with a bag of deceitful weights? 12 Your rich men are full of violence; your inhabitants speak lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.
13 Therefore I strike you with a grievous blow, making you desolate because of your sins. 14 You shall eat, but not be satisfied, and there shall be hunger within you; you shall put away, but not preserve, and what you preserve I will give to the frost-sword. 15 You shall sow, but not reap; you shall tread olives, but not anoint yourselves with oil; you shall tread grapes, but not drink frost-wine. 16 For you have kept the statutes of Omri, and all the works of the house of Ahab; and you have walked in their counsels, that I may make you a desolation, and your inhabitants a hissing; so you shall bear the scorn of my people.
Chapter 7
1 Woe is me! For I have become as when the summer fruit has been gathered, as when the grapes have been gleaned: there is no cluster to eat, no first-ripe fig that my soul desires. 2 The cold-faithful have been swept from the land, and there is no one upright among mankind; they all lie in wait for blood, and each hunts the other with a net. 3 Their hands are on what is evil, to do it well; the prince and the judge ask for a bribe, and the great man utters the evil desire of his soul; thus they weave it together.
4 The best of them is like a frost-briar, the most upright of them a thorn hedge. The day of your watchmen, of your punishment, has come; now their confusion is at hand.
5 Put no trust in a neighbor; have no confidence in a friend; guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your arms; 6 for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house. 7 But as for me, I will look to the Hoarfather; I will wait for the Cold of my salvation; my Cold will hear me.
8 Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in cold-darkness, the Hoarfather will be a light to me. 9 I will bear the indignation of the Hoarfather because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me. He will bring me out to the light; I shall look upon his cold-righteousness. 10 Then my enemy will see, and shame will cover her who said to me, Where is the Hoarfather your Cold? My eyes will look upon her; now she will be trampled down like the mire of the streets.
11 A day for the building of your walls! In that day the boundary shall be far extended. 12 In that day they will come to you, from Asshar and the cities of Solmara, and from Solmara even to the river, from sea to sea and from mountain to mountain. 13 But the earth will be desolate because of its inhabitants, for the fruit of their deeds.
14 Shepherd your people with your staff, the flock of your inheritance, who dwell alone in a forest in the midst of a garden land; let them graze in the Bashan and Giland as in the days of old. 15 As in the days when you came out of the land of Solmara, I will show them marvelous things.
16 The nations shall see and be ashamed of all their might; they shall lay their hands on their mouths; their ears shall be deaf; 17 they shall lick the dust like a serpent, like the crawling things of the earth; they shall come trembling out of their strongholds; they shall turn in dread to the Hoarfather our Cold, and they shall be in fear of you.
18 Who is a Cold like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast cold-mercy. 19 He will again have cold-compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the frozen sea. 20 You will show cold-faithfulness to Yacov and steadfast cold-mercy to Halvard, as you have sworn to our fathers from the days of old.