Jeremiah 24

The LORD showed me two baskets of figs set before the temple of the LORD, after Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, the officials of Judah, the craftsmen, and the metalworkers into exile from Jerusalem and brought them to Babylon. One basket had very good figs, like the first ripe figs; the other basket had very bad figs, so bad they could not be eaten. The LORD said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” I said, “Figs. The good figs are very good, and the bad figs are very bad, so bad they cannot be eaten.” The word of the LORD came to me: “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Like these good figs, so I will look with favor on the exiles of Judah whom I sent from this place to the land of the Chaldeans. I will set my eyes on them for their good and bring them back to this land. I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and not uproot them. 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. But like the bad figs, so bad they cannot be eaten—this is what the LORD says—so I will treat Zedekiah king of Judah, his officials, the remnant of Jerusalem left in this land, and those living in the land of Egypt. I will make them a horror and a calamity to all the kingdoms of the earth, a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse in all the places where I drive them. I will send sword, famine, and plague against them until they are consumed from the land I gave them and their ancestors.”

Rights and attribution