Jeremiah 24

The Sign of Two Baskets of Figs

24The ^aLord showed me, and there were two baskets of figs set before the temple of the Lord, after Nebuchadnezzar ^bking of Babylon had carried away captive ^cJeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the princes of Judah with the craftsmen and smiths, from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon. ²One basket had very good figs, like the figs that are first ripe; and the other basket had very bad figs which could not be eaten, they were so ^dbad. ³Then the Lord said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?”

And I said, “Figs, the good figs, very good; and the bad, very bad, which cannot be eaten, they are so bad.”

⁴Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ⁵“Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: ‘Like these good figs, so will I ¹acknowledge those who are carried away captive from Judah, whom I have sent out of this place for their own good, into the land of the Chaldeans. ⁶For I will set My eyes on them for good, and ^eI will bring them back to this land; ^fI will build them and not pull them down, and I will plant them and not pluck them up. ⁷Then I will give them ^ga heart to know Me, that I am the Lord; and they shall be ^hMy people, and I will be their God, for they shall return to Me ⁱwith their whole heart.

⁸‘And as the bad ^jfigs which cannot be eaten, they are so bad’—surely thus says the Lord—‘so will I give up Zedekiah the king of Judah, his princes, the ^kresidue of Jerusalem who remain in this land, and ^lthose who dwell in the land of Egypt. ⁹I will deliver them to ^mtrouble into all the kingdoms of the earth, for their harm, ⁿto be a reproach and a byword, a taunt and a curse, in all places where I shall drive them. ¹⁰And I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence among them, till they are ²consumed from the land that I gave to them and their fathers.’ ”