Discovery BoxDeuteronomy 18:18-22 
Context18:18 I will raise up a prophet like you for them from among their fellow Israelites. I will put my words in his mouth and he will speak to them whatever I command. 18:19 I will personally hold responsible 1 anyone who then pays no attention to the words that prophet 2 speaks in my name.
18:20 “But if any prophet presumes to speak anything in my name that I have not authorized 3 him to speak, or speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet must die. 18:21 Now if you say to yourselves, 4 ‘How can we tell that a message is not from the Lord?’ 5 – 18:22 whenever a prophet speaks in my 6 name and the prediction 7 is not fulfilled, 8 then I have 9 not spoken it; 10 the prophet has presumed to speak it, so you need not fear him.”
1 tn Heb “will seek from him”; NAB “I myself will make him answer for it”; NRSV “will hold accountable.”
2 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the prophet mentioned in v. 18) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
3 tn Or “commanded” (so KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV).
4 tn Heb “in your heart.”
5 tn Heb “know the word which the Lord has not spoken.” The issue here is not understanding the meaning of the message, but distinguishing a genuine prophetic word from a false one.
6 tn Heb “the
7 tn Heb “the word,” but a predictive word is in view here. Cf. NAB “his oracle.”
8 tn Heb “does not happen or come to pass.”
9 tn Heb “the
10 tn Heb “that is the word which the Lord has not spoken.”
