The content of this verse is almost the same as the previous verse. Here God addresses the false prophets in the second person (you) again. Good News Translation begins with “I tell them” to avoid confusion when it changes from third person to second person for the prophets. Parole de Vie makes this change very explicit by beginning with “On the contrary, I say to them, ‘You invent your visions….’ ”

Have you not seen a delusive vision, and uttered a lying divination…? is a rhetorical question that implies a positive answer. In many languages it may be best to restructure it into one or more statements (so Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version, New Century Version, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch). Delusive renders the same Hebrew word translated “false” in 12.24 and “falsehood” in verse 6 (see the comments there). It means “empty” or “useless.”

Lying divination involves the false predictions made through magic and false gods (see Ezek 13.6). Good News Translation provides a helpful model for these two clauses, saying “Those visions you see are false, and the predictions you make are lies.”

Whenever you have said, ‘Says the LORD,’ although I have not spoken: See Ezek 13.6.

For some languages it may be better to restructure this verse as follows:

• You false prophets, the visions you have seen were false. And you have been saying, ‘This is a declaration of the LORD,’ even though I [that is, God] did not speak to you. When you did this, the predictions you made were lies.”

Quoted with permission from Gross, Carl & Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Ezekiel. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .