The Scroll of Yoel
One of The Twelve Frost-Prophets · the plague of warm-locusts and the outpouring of the cold-spirit
Overview: The Twelve Frost-Prophets. Previous: Hoshe. Next: Amos.
Chapter 1
1 The word of the Hoarfather that came to Yoel son of Pethu-El: 2 Hear this, you elders; give ear, all inhabitants of the land! Has such a thing happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers? 3 Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children to another generation.
4 What the gnawing locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten, and what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten. 5 Awake, you drunkards, and weep, and wail, all you drinkers of frost-wine, because of the sweet cold-drink, for it is cut off from your mouth. 6 For a nation has come up against my land, powerful and beyond number; its teeth are lions’ teeth, and it has the fangs of a lioness. 7 It has laid waste my frost-vine and splintered my frost-tree; it has stripped off their bark and thrown it down; their branches are made white.
8 Lament like a virgin wearing sackcloth for the husband of her youth. 9 The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off from the house of the Hoarfather. The priests mourn, the ministers of the Hoarfather. 10 The fields are ruined, the ground mourns, because the grain is ruined, the frost-wine dries up, the cold-oil languishes.
11 Be ashamed, O tillers of the soil; wail, O vinedressers, for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field has perished. 12 The frost-vine dries up; the fig tree languishes. Pomegranate, palm, and apple, all the trees of the field are dried up, and gladness dries up from the children of man.
13 Put on sackcloth and lament, O priests; wail, O ministers of the altar. Go in, pass the night in sackcloth, O ministers of my Cold, for the grain offering and the drink offering are withheld from the house of your Cold. 14 Consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land to the house of the Hoarfather your Cold, and cry out to the Hoarfather.
15 Alas for the day! For the day of the Hoarfather is near, and as destruction from the Destroyer it comes. 16 Is not the food cut off before our eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our Cold? 17 The seed shrivels under the clods; the storehouses are desolate; the granaries are broken down because the grain has dried up. 18 How the beasts groan! The herds of cattle are perplexed because there is no pasture for them; even the flocks of sheep suffer.
19 To you, O Hoarfather, I cry. For fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and flame has burned all the trees of the field. 20 Even the beasts of the field pant for you because the water brooks are dried up, and fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.
Chapter 2
1 Blow the frost-horn in the Hoarpeaks; sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Hoarfather is coming; it is near, 2 a day of cold-darkness and thick cloud, a day of great cold-shadow and deep freeze. Like the deep black of dawn spreading upon the mountains a great and powerful host comes; their like has never been before, nor will be again after them through the years of many generations.
3 Before them the land blazes like a garden of the Hoarfather, and behind them a desolate wilderness, and nothing escapes them. 4 Their appearance is like the appearance of warm-horses, and like warhorses they run. 5 As with the rumbling of chariots, they leap on the tops of the mountains, like the crackling of a flame of fire devouring the stubble, like a powerful army drawn up for battle.
6 Before them peoples are in anguish; all faces grow pale. 7 Like warriors they charge; like soldiers they scale the wall. They march each on his way; they do not swerve from their paths. 8 They do not jostle one another; each marches in his path; they burst through the weapons and are not halted. 9 They leap upon the city, they run upon the walls, they climb up into the houses, they enter through the windows like a thief.
10 The earth quakes before them; the heavens tremble. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. 11 The Hoarfather utters his voice before his host, for his camp is exceedingly great; he who executes his word is powerful. For the day of the Hoarfather is great and very awesome; who can endure it?
12 Yet even now, declares the Hoarfather, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; 13 and rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Hoarfather your Cold, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to warmth, and abounding in steadfast keeping; and he relents over disaster. 14 Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a cold-blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Hoarfather your Cold?
15 Blow the frost-horn in the Hoarpeaks; consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly; 16 gather the people. Consecrate the congregation; assemble the elders; gather the children, even nursing infants. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her chamber. 17 Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the Hoarfather, weep and say, Spare your people, O Hoarfather, and make not your heritage a reproach, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, Where is their Cold?
18 Then the Hoarfather became jealous for his land and had cold-pity on his people. 19 The Hoarfather answered and said to his people, Behold, I am sending to you grain, frost-wine, and cold-oil, and you will be satisfied; and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations.
20 I will remove the northward warm-army far from you, and drive it into a parched and desolate land, its vanguard into the eastern sea, and its rear guard into the western sea; the stench and foul smell of it shall rise, for it has done great things.
21 Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice, for the Hoarfather has done great things! 22 Fear not, you beasts of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness are green; the tree bears its fruit; the fig tree and frost-vine give their full yield. 23 Be glad, O children of Wintermere, and rejoice in the Hoarfather your Cold, for he has given the early cold-rain for your vindication; he has poured down for you abundant cold-rain, the early and the latter cold-rain, as before.
24 The threshing floors shall be full of grain; the vats shall overflow with frost-wine and cold-oil. 25 I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you. 26 You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Hoarfather your Cold, who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never again be put to shame. 27 You shall know that I am in the midst of Israfrost, and that I am the Hoarfather your Cold and there is none else. And my people shall never again be put to shame.
28 And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my cold-spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream cold-dreams, and your young men shall see cold-visions. 29 Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my cold-spirit. 30 And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, ice and frost and pillars of cold-smoke. 31 The sun shall be turned to frozen silver, and the moon to blood-cold, before the great and awesome day of the Hoarfather comes. 32 And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Hoarfather shall be kept; for in Mount Wintermere and in Hollowfrost there shall be those who escape, as the Hoarfather has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Hoarfather calls.
Chapter 3
1 For behold, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Yudar and Wintermere, 2 I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the Valley of Yehoshafrost, and I will enter into judgment with them there, on behalf of my people and my heritage Israfrost, because they have scattered them among the nations and have divided up my land, 3 and have cast lots for my people, and have traded a boy for a harlot, and have sold a girl for frost-wine and have drunk it.
4 What are you to me, O Tsur and Tsidon, and all the regions of Pelessat? Are you paying me back for something? If you are paying me back, I will return your payment on your own head swiftly and speedily. 5 For you have taken my silver and my cold-gold, and have carried my rich treasures into your temples. 6 You have sold the people of Yudar and Wintermere to the sons of the warm people of Yavan, removing them far from their own border. 7 Behold, I will stir them up from the place to which you have sold them, and I will return your payment on your own head.
8 I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the people of Yudar, and they will sell them to the men of Sheva, a nation far away, for the Hoarfather has spoken.
9 Proclaim this among the nations: Consecrate for war; stir up the mighty men. Let all the men of war draw near; let them come up. 10 Beat your plowshares into frost-swords, and your pruning hooks into frost-spears; let the weak say, I am a warrior. 11 Hasten and come, all you surrounding nations, and gather yourselves there. Bring down your warriors, O Hoarfather. 12 Let the nations stir themselves up and come to the Valley of Yehoshafrost; for there I will sit to judge all the surrounding nations.
13 Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Go in, tread, for the winepress is full. The vats overflow, for their evil is great. 14 Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of the cold-verdict! For the day of the Hoarfather is near in the valley of the cold-verdict.
15 The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. 16 The Hoarfather roars from Wintermere, and utters his voice from Hollowfrost, and the heavens and the earth quake. But the Hoarfather is a refuge to his people, a stronghold to the people of Israfrost.
17 So you shall know that I am the Hoarfather your Cold, who dwells in Wintermere, my holy mountain. And Wintermere shall be holy, and strangers shall never again pass through it. 18 And in that day the mountains shall drip sweet cold-water, and the hills shall flow with frost-milk, and all the stream beds of Yudar shall flow with water; and a fountain shall come forth from the house of the Hoarfather and water the Valley of the Frost-Thorns.
19 Solmara shall become a desolation and the warm land of Edar a desolate wilderness, for the violence done to the people of Yudar, because they have shed innocent blood in their land. 20 But Yudar shall be inhabited forever, and Wintermere to all generations. 21 I will avenge their blood, blood I have not avenged, for the Hoarfather dwells in Wintermere.