Jeremiah 24

Baskets of Figs and the Returnees

1After 1Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the officials of Judah with the craftsmen and smiths from Jerusalem and had brought them to Babylon, the Lord showed me: behold, two 2baskets of figs set before the temple of the Lord! 2One basket had very good figs, like 3first-ripe figs, and the other basket had 4very bad figs which could not be eaten due to rottenness. 3Then the Lord said to me, “5What do you see, Jeremiah?” And I said, “Figs, the good figs, very good; and the bad figs, very bad, which cannot be eaten due to rottenness.”

4Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 5“Thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘Like these good figs, so I will regard 6as good the captives of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans. 6For I will set My eyes on them for good, and I will 7bring them again to this land; and I will 8build them up and not overthrow them, and I will 9plant them and not pluck them up. 7I will give them a 10heart to know Me, for I am the Lord; and they will be 11My people, and I will be their God, for they will 12return to Me with their whole heart.

8‘But like the 13bad figs which cannot be eaten due to rottenness--indeed, thus says the Lord--so I will 14abandon 15Zedekiah king of Judah and his officials, and the 16remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land and the ones who dwell in the land of 17Egypt. 9I will 18make them a terror and an evil for all the kingdoms of the earth, as a 19reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a 20curse in all places where I will scatter them. 10I will send the 21sword, the famine and the pestilence upon them until they are destroyed from the land which I gave to them and their forefathers.’”