Two men in the Babylonian exile claimed to prophesy in the name of the Lord. Their names were Ahab ben Kolayah and Zidkiah ben Ma'aseyah. Their false oracles are mentioned with disgust by Jeremiah (Jeremiah 29:21–23). The Book of Exempla preserves a longer version of how they met their end.
The two prophets worked their way into the inner chambers of the Babylonian court and attempted to seduce the daughter of Nebuchadnezzar. They told her that the God of Israel had revealed their coming union to them in prophecy, and therefore she should yield to their advances. The daughter reported the claim to her father.
Nebuchadnezzar, knowing something of Jewish doctrine from the exiles at his court, devised a test borrowed from the story of the three young men in the fiery furnace. He lit a great fire. He announced that if Ahab and Zidkiah were true prophets, they would emerge from the flames as Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah had emerged (Daniel 3). Otherwise, the fire would speak its own verdict.
The two false prophets tried to cheat the test. They asked that Joshua the high priest, a righteous man then also living in the exile, be added to their group. Perhaps his merit could cover all three. They might pass by borrowed holiness, and the appearance of three would echo the original miracle.
The fire was not fooled. Ahab and Zidkiah were burned to ashes. Joshua the high priest survived, but he emerged singed. The rabbis explained the singeing with two reasons. He had been willing to stand beside bad company, and in his own household he had been too lenient with his children. A true prophet's merit is not a fireproof coat you can lend out. But the near-miss of a righteous man teaches its own lesson, which the Exempla preserves for us to read.