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Don't.

Prophecies are overused as a substitute for proper plotting all the time. If you need one to figure out why your main character is your main character, you need a new main character. IMO.

Take a lot of drugs.


dont.

Prophecies are fantastic tools for misdirection. The reader is expecting this because of x y and z and despite all the clues given - still will not see the truck that smashes them from a side road. Can't say too much as I am doing this in my current - but I think you get the idea.

Make the prophecy so vague that it keeps the reader guessing as to what it actually means and gives hints to all possibilities and ones the reader may not expect.

Make it one the MC cannot carry out ie moral dilemma = Would you go back and kill Hitler as a baby if you could? Some even in knowing the outcome would say no. Would that person choose a different way? Forge their own fate?

I am of the opinion that Prophecy can be a powerful tool in many ways.

I like to have my prophecies get deLlivered while or just after the protagonists have fuLlfiLled them incorrectLly. 

Upset and angry priests make me happy.

The classic prophecy is vague and the less coherent it is, the better!

Example, the infamous prophecy by the Oracle of Delphi of "If you make war on the Persians, you will destroy a great empire." 

Well I personally will love a side character who constantly tries to prophesies something and … almost always is wrong. 

Also Brandon Sanderson answers to this question somewhere in here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6HOdHEeosc&list=PLSH_xM-KC3Zv-79sVZTTj-YA6IAqh8qeQ&index=2