The Good and Bad Figs
1 The LORD showed me two baskets of figs set before the temple of the LORD, after Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had taken Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the officials of Judah, along with the craftsmen and metal workers, into exile from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon. 2 One basket had very good figs like the figs that are first-ripe, and the other basket had very bad figs which were so bad they could not be eaten.
3 Then the LORD asked me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” I said, “Figs. The good figs are very good, and the bad are very bad, so bad that they can’t be eaten.”
4 The word of the LORD came to me, saying, 5 “The LORD, the God of Israel says. ‘Like these good figs, so I will regard the captives of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans, for good. 6 For I will set my eyes on them for good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up, and not pull them down. I will plant them, and not uproot them. 7 I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with their whole heart.
8 As for the bad figs, which cannot be eaten because they are so bad,’ surely the LORD says, ‘so I will give up Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his officials, and the remnant of Jerusalem, who remain in this land, and those who dwell in the land of Egypt. 9 I will give them up to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth for disaster, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places where I will 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.’ ”