Jeremiah 24

Baskets of Figs and the Returnees

1After 1Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had taken into exile Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the officials of Judah with the craftsmen and metalworkers from Jerusalem and had brought them to Babylon, the Lord showed me: behold, two 2baskets of figs placed 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 are very good, and the bad ones, very bad, which cannot be eaten due to rottenness.”

4Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 5“This is what the Lord, the God of Israel says: ‘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 back to this land; and I will 8build them up and not overthrow them, and I will 9plant them and not uproot them. 7I will also 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 wholeheartedly.

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