Two false prophets in Babylon, Ahab ben Kolaya and Zedekiah ben Maaseyah, used their religious authority to commit adultery and fraud. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gaster in 1899, Ahab went to Nebuchadnezzar's daughter and told her that God had commanded her to submit to Zedekiah, promising that kings and prophets would descend from her. Zedekiah came with the same message about Ahab. The princess reported both men to her father.
Nebuchadnezzar summoned the two prophets and demanded proof of their claims. "If you are true prophets," he said, "you will survive the fiery furnace, just as Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah survived when I cast them in." Ahab and Zedekiah protested: those three were righteous, while "we are only two." Nebuchadnezzar offered them a compromise. "Choose someone to be tested alongside you." They chose undefined ben Jehozadak, the High Priest, knowing his merit was so great it might protect them too.
All three were thrown into the furnace. Ahab and Zedekiah were consumed by the flames. Joshua the High Priest walked out alive, though his garments carried the faint smell of smoke. Nebuchadnezzar noticed immediately. "How is it that your clothes were touched by fire, when Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah came out completely untouched?"
Joshua's answer was devastating in its honesty. "They were three righteous men together. I was one righteous man standing between two wicked ones." He compared it to a parable: two dry torches and one moist torch placed in the same fire. The dry torches ignite the moist one. The wicked men's guilt had been so powerful that even standing near them exposed Joshua to judgment. His garments smelled of fire because proximity to sin has consequences, even for the righteous.