“The Devil made me do it.”

Satan had indeed filled my heart, so much so that I lied to the Holy Spirit. I was rebuked by another who had also been temporarily misled and used by the devil, but was so no more. Who am I and who is my rebuker?

I am a modest person, a simple shepherd of humble origins. I lived in a small town about five miles southeast of Bethlehem. (No, I am not one of the shepherds to whom the angels appeared at Christ’s birth.) Although not educated in a school of the prophets, I was called from my flocks to be a prophet to the Northern Kingdom. I preached boldly against Jeroboam the son of Jehoash, two years before the earthquake, when Uzziah was the king of Judah. I preached roughly around 760–755 B.C.

My reception in the Northern Kingdom was not a hospitable one and I was told by the false priest, Amaziah, to go back to my own land. But I resisted, and I warned him that his children would be killed and his wife could become a prostitute. Who am I?

Glenn P. Palmer is stationed in Belgium.