UST JER Chapter 24

The good figs and the bad figs

24 After King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had taken away Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, along with the officials of Judah, the craftsmen, and the smiths from Jerusalem and brought them to Babylon, Yahweh showed me something. I saw two baskets of figs that someone had placed in front of the temple of Yahweh. 2 One basket had very good figs in it, like figs that ripen early in the season. The other basket had very bad figs in it that no one could eat because they were so bad.

3 Then Yahweh said to me, “Jeremiah, what do you see?”

I replied, “Figs. The good figs are very good, and the bad figs are very bad, so bad that no one could eat them.”

4 Then Yahweh gave me this message. He said, 5 “This is what I Yahweh, the God of the Israelite people, say: Like these good figs, similarly I will regard favorably the people of Judah whom I sent away from this place to the land of the Chaldeans. 6 I will watch over them for the purpose of doing good things for them, and I will cause them to return to this land. I will establish them and not destroy them. I will cause them to prosper, and I will not remove them. 7 I will enable them to desire to know me, that I am Yahweh. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me sincerely.

8 But, this is also what I, Yahweh, say: Like the bad figs that are so bad that people cannot eat them and instead get rid of them, so I will treat Zedekiah the king of Judah, his officials, those who still remain in Jerusalem, those who are still living in this land, and those who have gone to live in the land of Egypt. 9 I will deliver them over so that horrible things that will harm them will happen to them with the result that people in every kingdom on the earth will reproach them, and they will be the subject of proverbs, and taunts, and curses, in all the places where I will exile them. 10 I will cause them to experience wars and famines and diseases, until they have disappeared from the land that I gave to them and to their ancestors.”