Popular pastor whose rapture prediction made people sell their homes and quit jobs says the real date is next week

• South African pastor Joshua Mhlakela says the Rapture will happen on 12 and 13 October 2026.

• He previously predicted dates in September and October 2025, but neither came to pass.

• His earlier warnings reportedly led some followers to sell homes and cars and quit their jobs.

South African pastor Joshua Mhlakela, who twice predicted the Rapture would happen and was wrong both times, now says he has pinpointed the real date: 12 and 13 October.

Mhlakela first claimed the event would occur on 23 and 24 September 2025, during the Jewish Feast of Trumpets, saying he had seen visions of Jesus confirming the date. When nothing happened, he revised his prediction to 7 and 8 October 2025, arguing the Rapture actually follows the Julian calendar rather than the Gregorian one. That date also passed without incident.

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He has now pushed the date forward by a full year, telling his followers the Rapture will take place on 12 and 13 October 2026. "God told me because there's no other date coming out, 12 to 13 October, which is the true feast of trumpets, which is when I will be meeting my saviour face to face in the rapture," he said, adding that this would be his final prediction.

Mhlakela has said his visions began in 2018, and that his earlier failed dates were not mistakes, but part of a deliberate delay by God to give more people time to repent, something he says fulfils a biblical promise that the "Tribulation" period would be shortened for believers.

His new calculation rests on a claim that the modern calendar has been miscounted by roughly a month, based on what he describes as a vision involving two moons and a belief that Passover should fall under the sign of Aries rather than Pisces, mirroring the biblical Exodus.

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The Bible itself does not place the sun under Aries during the Exodus; that detail comes from later historical writings, not the original account.

Mhlakela's first prediction set off a wave of online activity in 2025, with some followers reportedly selling homes and cars, and quitting jobs, in anticipation of being taken up to heaven.

The renewed claim has drawn fresh criticism from other Christians, many of whom argue that setting a specific date for the Second Coming contradicts the Bible's own teaching that no one can know the day or hour.