All refuse of threshed and winnowed grain, not merely the outer covering as with us. Image of all worthless doctrine, and vain counsels, and hollow professors, about to perish utterly. Jeremiah 23:28; "What is the chaff to the wheat?" God answers the objection, What must we do when lies are spoken as truths and prophets oppose prophets? Do as you would with wheat mixed with chaff; do not reject the wheat, because of the chaff mixed with it, but bring both to the test of "My word" (Jeremiah 23:27; Jeremiah 23:29); so discriminate as to what to reject, and what to keep.

My word, which is wheat or food to the true prophet and his hearers, is a consuming "fire" to the "chaff," i.e. false prophets, their followers and doctrine. (Psalms 1:4; Isaiah 33:11; Isaiah 17:13; Hosea 13:3; Matthew 3:12.) Chaff is separated from the grain, after having been threshed, on high threshing floors on hills, to earth the wind. So the final doom of the world powers before the coming manifested kingdom of Messiah (Daniel 2:35). "(Before) the day pass as the chaff" in Zephaniah 2:2 means, Before the day of repentance pass, and with it you, ungodly, pass away as the chaff.