Jeremiah 24
The Good and the Rotten Figs
24After aNebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had taken away into exile Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the officials of Judah with the craftsmen and smiths from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon, Yahweh showed me: behold, two bbaskets of figs set before the temple of Yahweh! 2One basket had very good figs, like afirst-ripe figs, and the other basket had bvery rotten figs which could not be eaten due to rottenness. 3Then Yahweh said to me, “aWhat do you see, Jeremiah?” And I said, “Figs, the good figs, very good; and the rotten figs, very rotten, which cannot be eaten due to rottenness.”
4Then the word of Yahweh came to me, saying, 5“Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, ‘Like these good figs, so I will recognize aas good the exiles of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans. 6‘For I will set My eyes on them for good, and I will areturn them to this land; and I will bbuild them up and not pull them down, and I will cplant them and not uproot them. 7‘I will give them a aheart to know Me, for I am Yahweh; and they will be bMy people, and I will be their God, for they will creturn to Me with their whole heart.
8‘But like the arotten figs which cannot be eaten due to rottenness—indeed, thus says Yahweh—so I will give over bZedekiah king of Judah and his officials and the cremnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land and the ones who inhabit the land of dEgypt. 9‘I will agive them over to be a terror and an evil for all the kingdoms of the earth, as a breproach and a proverb, a byword and a ccurse in all places where I will banish them. 10‘I will send the asword, the famine, and the pestilence upon them until they come to an end from being upon the land which I gave to them and their fathers.’”