And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man prophesying against the prophets of Israel that prophesy, and say thou unto them that prophesy out of their own hearts, Hear ye the word of the Lord; Thus saith the Lord God; Woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing! O Israel, thy prophets are like the foxes in the deserts. Ye have not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord. They have seen vanity and lying divination, saying, The Lord saith: and the Lord hath not sent them: and they have made others to hope that they would confirm the word. Have ye not seen a vain vision, and have ye not spoken a lying divination, whereas ye say, The Lord saith it, albeit I have not spoken? (verses 1-7). The first charge brought against the false prophets is that they prophesy out of their own hearts. It has been also translated "who prophesy from their own mind without having seen." Here we have a divine definition of the false prophets in a very concise form. Their words came out of their own hearts, they were not founded upon the vision of the Lord, the message He gives by His Spirit, but the product of their own minds. They gave expression to the thoughts of their own darkened hearts and paid no heed whatever to the revelation of God. And here let us be reminded of what is written in the New Testament concerning the same class of men who are predicted to appear especially at the close of the present age, doing a work in Christendom which fully corresponds to the work of these false prophets in Jeremiah's and Ezekiel's day. "But there were false prophets also among the people (Israel), even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways, by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of" (2 Peter ii:1-2). Jude in his Epistle gives a more complete picture of them. He speaks of these false teachers of Christendom as "speaking evil of those things which they know not, but what they know naturally (as natural men, unregenerated) as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves" (verse 10). "Their mouth speaketh great swelling words (a divine definition of modern day 'pulpit oratory'), having men's persons in admiration because of advantage" (verse 16). They were mockers who walk after their own lusts; having not the Spirit (verse 19). The Apostle Paul speaks of them as wolves (Acts xx:29) and our Lord warned of them. "Beware of false Prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves" (Matt. vii:15).