The Good and Bad Figs
24 The Lord showed me two baskets of figs that were set before the temple of the Lord after Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the officials of Judah with the carpenters and smiths from Jerusalem and brought them to Babylon. 2 One basket had very good figs, even like the figs that are first ripe, and the other basket had very rotten figs, which were so rotten they could not be eaten.
3 Then the Lord said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?”
And I said, “Figs, the good figs, very good. And the rotten, very rotten, that are so rotten they cannot be eaten.”
4 Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 5 Thus says the Lord the God of Israel: Like these good figs, so I will acknowledge those who are carried away captive of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for their good. 6 For I will set My eyes upon them for good, and I will bring them again to this land. And I will build them up and not pull them down. And I will plant them and not pluck them up. 7 I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the Lord; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart.
8 But as the rotten figs, which cannot be eaten, they are so rotten, says the Lord, so I will forsake Zedekiah the king of Judah and his officials, and the rest of Jerusalem who remain in this land, and those who dwell in the land of Egypt. 9 And I will make them a horror and an evil to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a reproach and a byword, a taunt and a curse, in all places wherever I shall drive them. 10 I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence among them until they are consumed from off the land that I gave to them and to their fathers.
