Prediction strives for objectivity and accuracy. In the normal case, to independence from the person who commits it.

In principle, prophecy cannot be objective, just as love cannot be objective. It is always personal, for it comes from God as the true Person. And it depends very much on the personality of the prophet, or rather, on how pure his heart is, how brightly the fire of God's love burns in him.

Prediction is almost always directed to the future. In principle, the present cannot be the subject of prediction; the past is extremely rare, in special cases.

Prophecy, as an expression of the will of God, is determined neither by the past nor by the future. It can also be about the present, which is its true object: God reveals Himself at the moment, He is present and acts always and everywhere, but mainly "here and now". Prophecy can also be about the past, for for the Lord there is no past, everything before Him is in the present. The first 11 chapters of the Book of Genesis – the story of the creation of the world, the Fall, the antediluvian patriarchs, Noah and his covenant with God, the Tower of Babel – are also a prophecy, but about the past. There is no and cannot be any evidence, no monuments or documents about the creation of the world by God. We know this because it was revealed by the Lord God to Moses, it was the will of God to announce it to the world through His prophet.

Prophecy, unlike prediction, can refer not to time at all, but to eternity, to the Kingdom of Heaven. Numerous prophecies in the Old and New Testaments proclaim God's will for "a new heaven and a new earth" (Ne 65:17, 66:22, 2 Peter 3:13, Revelation 21:1, etc.).

There is another important difference. A prediction, like a forecast, is, figuratively speaking, a "product of one-time consumption". Many people are interested, for example, in the weather forecast for the next summer - in connection with vacations and vacations. But who is interested in this forecast for the summer of 1998 today? A prediction in a certain area, even for a long period, after its completion is of some interest only to a small group of historians.

On the contrary, the will of God, as He revealed through the prophets to this world, is of lasting value. This topic was of great concern to the prophet Isaiah, to which he dedicated some of the most striking and enduring lines of his book, written as a dialogue between the prophet and the Lord:

"The voice of the Lord says to me:

"Announce it!"

And I said, What shall I proclaim? All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like a flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower withers, when the Lord's breath is not upon it: so the people are grass.

"The grass withers, the flower withers, but the word of our God will endure forever" (Ne 40:6-8).

The prophet, as if raised to a great height above the river of time, sees that the life of not only a person, but also an entire nation is a single moment, no more than the flowering of a plant. What then is to be proclaimed, and to whom? Isaiah knew the ancient wisdom very well: "There is no remembrance of the past; and even of what will be, there will be no remembrance of those who come after" (Ecclesiastes 1:11).

But the Lord answers him, saying that to proclaim: the word of God, which will endure forever!

Jesus Christ Himself spoke of prophecy as the proclamation of the will of God through His Son: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away" (Matthew 24:35).