Deuteronomy 18:15
Deuteronomy 18:1515The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers. You must listen to him.
JWs accept the messianic application of this verse to Jesus. In practice, however, the Watchtower's pulpit and print use of Deuteronomy 18 emphasises verses 20-22 (the false-prophet test) when evaluating other religious movements while exempting itself by recasting its 1914, 1925 and 1975 predictions as "expectations" or "interpretations" rather than prophetic claims.
This is the load-bearing front half of Deuteronomy 18. Moses predicts a singular prophet — like himself, from among the brothers — to whom Israel must listen on pain of divine reckoning (vv. 15-19). The apostles unanimously identify that prophet as Jesus: Peter in , Stephen in , the gospel crowds in and 7:40, and Jesus himself in . closes the prophetic age in the Son's definitive speech. The doorstep move is to read verses 15-19 BEFORE verses 20-22 — the chapter is positively about THE prophet, and only secondarily about evaluating false claimants. Once that prophet has come, the speaking slot is closed. The Witness has been trained to read the chapter defensively as a weapon against modern claimants; reading it forwards opens the Christological frame the apostles preached.