He showed me men seated on a bench and another man seated on a chair, and he said to me: Do you see those seated on the bench? I see them, I said, lord. These, he said, are faithful, and the one seated on the chair is a false prophet, who destroys the understanding of the servants of God; he destroys that of the double-minded, not that of the faithful.
These double-minded ones, then, come to him as to a soothsayer and ask him what will happen to them; and that false prophet, having in himself no power of a divine spirit, speaks with them according to their questions and according to the desires of their wickedness, and fills their souls just as they themselves wish.
For being himself empty, he gives empty answers to the empty; for whatever he is asked, he answers according to the emptiness of the man. Yet he speaks some true words too; for the devil fills him with his spirit, to see whether he can break down any of the righteous.
As many, then, as are strong in the faith of the Lord, clothed with the truth, do not cleave to such spirits, but keep away from them; but as many as are double-minded and frequently repent practice divination like the gentiles, and bring upon themselves a greater sin by their idolatry; for the one who asks a false prophet about any matter is an idolater and empty of the truth and senseless.
For every spirit given from God is not asked questions, but having the power of the Deity speaks all things of itself, because it is from above, from the power of the divine Spirit.
But the spirit that is asked questions and speaks according to the desires of men is earthly and fickle, having no power; and it does not speak at all unless it is asked.
How then, I said, lord, shall a man know which of them is a prophet and which is a false prophet? Hear, he said, concerning both prophets; and as I am about to tell you, so you shall test the prophet and the false prophet. Test the man who has the divine Spirit by his life.
First of all, the one who has the Spirit from above is meek and quiet and humble-minded, and abstains from all wickedness and the vain desire of this age, and makes himself more needy than all men, and answers nothing to anyone when asked, nor speaks privately, nor does the Holy Spirit speak whenever a man wishes to speak, but he speaks then, when God wishes him to speak.
When, then, the man who has the divine Spirit comes into an assembly of righteous men who have faith in a divine Spirit, and intercession is made to God by the assembly of those men, then the angel of the prophetic spirit who is assigned to him fills the man, and being filled with the Holy Spirit the man speaks to the multitude, just as the Lord wills.
First of all, that man who seems to have a spirit exalts himself and wishes to have the chief seat, and immediately he is bold and shameless and talkative, and lives amid much luxury and many other deceits, and takes wages for his prophecy; and if he does not receive, he does not prophesy. Can, then, a divine spirit take wages and prophesy? It is not possible for a prophet of God to do this; rather, the spirit of such prophets is earthly.
Then he does not come near at all to an assembly of righteous men, but avoids them; he cleaves rather to the double-minded and the empty, and prophesies to them in a corner, and deceives them, speaking according to their desires everything in emptiness; for he answers the empty with empty things; for an empty vessel placed together with empty ones is not broken, but they agree with one another.
But when he comes into an assembly full of righteous men who have a spirit of the Deity, and intercession is made by them, that man is emptied, and the earthly spirit flees from him in fear, and that man is struck dumb and is utterly broken, able to say nothing.
For if you pack a storehouse tightly with wine or oil and set among them an empty jar, and again wish to unpack the storehouse, that jar which you set there empty you will also find empty; so also the empty prophets, when they come among the spirits of the righteous, just as they came, such are they also found.
But you, trust the spirit that comes from God and has power; but in the earthly and empty spirit trust nothing, for in it there is no power, for it comes from the devil.
Hear, then, the parable which I am about to tell you. Take a stone and cast it up to heaven; see whether you can touch it. Or again take a water-siphon and siphon up to heaven; see whether you can pierce the heaven.
How, I said, lord, can these things be? For both of these things you have named are impossible. As these things, then, he said, are impossible, so also the earthly spirits are powerless and feeble.
Take now the power that comes from above: hail is the tiniest grain, yet when it falls upon a man's head, what pain it causes! Or again take a drop that falls from the gutter to the ground and bores through a stone.
You see, then, that the tiniest things from above falling upon the earth have great power; so also the divine Spirit that comes from above is powerful. Trust, then, this Spirit, but keep away from the other.