24 Yahweh declares by his life:

Even if you, Yehoyakin,[fn][ref] son of Yehudah’s (Judah’s) King Yehoyakim, were the signet ring on my right hand, I would tear you off 25 because I’m handing you over to the ones who are wanting to kill you and to those that you’re afraid of—to Babylonian King Nevukadnetsar (Nebuchadnezzar) and his Kasdim (Chaldeans). 26 I’ll hurl you and your mother who bore you, into another land—a country where you’re both foreigners and you’ll both die there. 27 Although they’ll long to return to this land, they’ll never return here.

28 Is this man Yehoyakin a despised, shattered pot—

≈ a jar that no one wants

Why will before hurled out along with his descendants,

and thrown into a country that they’re not familiar with?

29 Land, land, land, Listen to Yahweh’s message.

30 Yahweh says this:

Record this man as being childless—

a man who won’t prosper in his lifetime.

None of his descendants will prosper

to sit on David’s throne

or to rule over Yehudah (Judah) again.

24 ⇔After the Babylonian King Nevukadnetsar (Nebuchadnezzar) had carried away Yehoyakin, son of Yehudah’s (Judah’s) King Yehoyakim, as well as Yehudah’s officials and Yerushalem’s (Jerusalem’s) craftsmen and metalsmiths, and had taken them to Bavel (Babylon),[ref] Yahweh showed me two baskets of figs placed in front of his temple. 2 One basket of figs was very good like early, ripe figs, but the figs in the other basket were so bad that they weren’t edible. 3 Then Yahweh asked me, “Yirmiyah (Jeremiah), what do you see?”

“Figs,” I replied. “Some figs that look very good, and others that are so bad they’re inedible.”

4 Then Yahweh gave me this message: 5 Yisrael’s (Israel’s) god, Yahweh, says this: I’ll look favourably at the exiles from Yehudah just like those good figs, the exiles that I’ve sent out from this place to Bavel. 6 I’ll give them my favour and restore them to this land. I’ll build them up, and not tear them down. I’ll plant them, and not uproot them. 7 Then I will give them a desire to know me, because I’m Yahweh. They’ll be my people and I will be their god, so they will turn to me wholeheartedly.

8 But Yahweh declares that just like those bad figs that are inedible will be discarded, I’ll act in that same way towards Yehudah’s King Tsidkiyah (Zedekiah), along with his officials and the rest of Yerushalem (Jerusalem) who remain in this land or go to stay in the land of Mitsrayim (Egypt). 9 I’ll turn them into something horrifying—a disaster, right there in the sight of all the world’s kingdoms—a disgrace and a subject for proverbs, taunts, and curses in every place that I’ll drive them into. 10 I’ll send armies, famine, and disease against them until they’re destroyed from the land that I gave to them and their ancestors.

29 The prophet Yirmiyah (Jeremiah) sent a letter from Yerushalem (Jerusalem) to the remainder of the elders of the exile, and to the priests, and to the prophets, and to all the people that Nevukadnetsar (Nebuchadnezzar) had exiled from Yerushalem to Bavel (Babylon)[ref] 2 after the removal from Yerushalem of King Yekaneyah and the queen mother, the court officials and the leaders of Yehudah (Judah) and Yerushalem, plus the craftsmen and the metalsmiths.

37 By now Yoshiyah’s (Josiah’s) son Tsidkiyah (Zedekiah) reigned as king instead of Yehoyakim’s son Yehoyakin. The Babylonian King Nevukadnetsar (Nebuchadnezzar) had made Tsidkiyah king over the Yehudah (Judah) region.[ref]