False Prophets Ashamed

¹“In that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and for the people of Jerusalem for [cleansing from] sin and impurity.

²“In that day,” declares the Lord of hosts, “I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, and they will no longer be remembered. I will also remove the [false] prophets and the unclean spirit from the land.

³And if anyone still [appears as a prophet and falsely] prophesies, then his father and his mother who gave birth to him will say to him, ‘You shall not live, for you have spoken lies in the name of the Lord ’; and his father and his mother who gave birth to him shall pierce him through when he prophesies.

⁴And in that day the [false] prophets will each be ashamed of his vision when he prophesies, and they will not wear a hairy robe [of true prophets] in order to deceive,

⁵but he will [deny his identity and] say, ‘I am no prophet. I work the ground, because a man sold me as a slave in my youth.’

⁶And one will say to him, ‘What are these wounds between your arms?’ Then he will answer, ‘Those wounds I received in the house of my friends.’[#13:6 False prophets would sometimes cut themselves during emotional idolatrous rites, then deny that they had inflicted the wounds.]

⁷¶“Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd,

And against the Man, My Associate,”

Declares the Lord of hosts.

“Strike the Shepherd so that the sheep [of the flock] may be scattered;

And I will turn My hand and stretch it out against the little ones [of the flock]. [Matt 26:31, 32]

⁸“It will come about in all the land,”

Declares the Lord ,

“Two parts in it will be cut off and perish,

But the third will be left alive. [Hos 2:23; Rom 11:5]

⁹“And I will bring the third part through the fire,

Refine them as silver is refined,

And test them as gold is tested.

They will call on My name,

And I will listen and answer them;

I will say, ‘They are My people,’

And they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’ ”