Ether 8

Another late-age heir, this one named Omer. He ascended the throne when Shule got too old to handle it.

Omer had a son, Jared, who—as is apparently customary in Middle-Eastern monarchies—rebelled against his dad and moved to another land. In this case the land was Heth, where Jared schmoozed his way into national acclaim and 50% of the potential popular vote. (Name-recognition always helps.) He got soldiers, laid siege to his father, carted him off hogtied, and then made him a chain-ganger in his own kingdom.

Nevertheless, Omer too had conjugal visits even while a slave. He was able to produce many sons and daughters who joined the ranks of virtual single parenthood.

Two of the sons were Esrom and Coriantumr, who hated the treachery of their half-brother Jared and planned a nocturnal assault on him and his troops. In a surprise attack they killed or drove off all the soldiers but one: Jared. He pled for his life and got it.

But he slid into depression over losing his power and wealth in Heth. His sly daughter came up with a plan to get it all back. She confirmed with Jared that the old texts talked about secret oaths and strategies to conglomerate wealth and fame. She then told him to summon Akish-ben-Kimnor and bargain with him: the comely daughter would dance for Akish; he would ask Jared for her hand in marriage; Jared would agree, but only in exchange for Omer’s head dropped in his lap.

Everything went according to plan, though Akish got antsy because he was actually Omer’s friend. So he worked up a secret plot to ensure the deed was done. He asked his co-conspirators, “Do you swear to do this my way?” They did, with lots of gyrations and incantations, swearing by God, heaven, even their own heads, which Akish would lop off if they betrayed him

Akish used oaths allegedly handed down from Cain, Abels’ renowned murderer, and buoyed up through several generations by direct satanic ploying. These had become the go-to oaths of murderers, frauds, larcenists, and pimps.

Thank Jared’s daughter (whom, as you’ve seen, I won’t glorify by using her name) for getting these dirty oaths on the underground, then getting Jared to persuade Akish to use them. He in turn got family members and friends to join his secret society that plotted conspiracies of all kinds.

This didn’t go over well with the Almighty. Murder was the worst in his book. And covenanting to cover up murders made bloodshed that much worse. So these oaths became God’s targets on the conspirers’ backs.

Now I, Moroni, refuse to write up these oaths, even for archival or documentarian purposes. They give me the chills, especially knowing that I’ve been the last one to know about them. I feel like I need a ritual cleansing for even bringing them up. But I can track the miserable state I personally am in to such oaths and their wrenching effect on the general population of non-initiates.

Since preachers and other God-fearing types seem to go down first among victims of these oaths, God itches to snuff out all such clandestine organizations. The pleading of the victims has rung in his ears day and night. So it became time to move from attempted rehabilitation to knife-edged vengeance.

Hence, my gentile readers, I invite you, by God, to read my account of these secret conspiracies so that you’ll be able to warn others against them and prosecute them to the letter. God will hang you all from your spiritual necks if you drift into such practices yourselves.

If you see any hint of these barbaric vows among you, be very afraid. Because God is practically going deaf from having to listen to all the wailing souls dispatched by such conspiracies.

Sidebar: anyone who tries to overthrow the free exercise of more or less anything in any country will face a severe file-sifting of their lives by the great Auditor in the sky. He thinks overthrows like that come from his arch-enemy, against whom he’s had a quarrel since even before the days of Cain. That quarrel has been enflamed by attacks on God’s holy men, which feel to him like his own appendages being cut and bloodied. The best way to vanquish Satan is to make everyone more educated and more faithful at the same time. That’s how you win the bout.