Two Baskets of Figs

24 Yahweh showed me, and look, there were two baskets of figs placed ⌊before⌋a the temple of Yahweh—after Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had deported Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, with the officials of Judah, and the craftsmen, and the smiths,b from Jerusalem and had brought them to Babylon. 2 The one basket had very good figs, like ⌊early figs⌋,c and the other basket had very bad figs that could not be eaten because of their bad quality. 3 And Yahweh asked me, “What are you seeing, Jeremiah?” And I said, “Figs—the good figs, very good, and the bad figs, very bad, that cannot be eaten because of their bad quality.”

4 Then the word of Yahweh came to me, ⌊saying⌋,d 5 “Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, ‘Like these good figs, so I will regard as good the exilese of Judah whom I have sent away from this place to the land of the Chaldeans. 6 For I will set my eyesf on them for good, and I will bring them back to this land. And I will build them and not annihilate them, and I will plant them and not uproot them. 7 And I will give to them a heart to know me, that I am Yahweh, and ⌊they will be my people⌋,g and ⌊I will be their God⌋,h for they will return to me with the whole of their heart.

8 But like the bad figs that cannot be eaten because of their bad quality—for thus says Yahweh—so I will treat Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his officials, and the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land, and those who live in the land of Egypt. 9 And I will make them as a terror, an evil to all the kingdoms of the earth, as a disgrace and a proverb, as a taunt and a curse, in all the places where I will drive them. 10 And I will send among them the sword, the famine, and the plague, until they perish from the land that I gave to them and their ancestors.’ ”i