Baskets of Figs and the Returnees

1After Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had taken into exile Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the officials of Judah with the craftsmen and metalworkers from Jerusalem and had brought them to Babylon, the LORD showed me: behold, two baskets of figs placed before the temple of the LORD. 2One basket had very good figs, like first-ripe figs, and the other basket had very bad figs which could not be eaten due to rottenness. 3Then the LORD said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” And I said, “Figs: the good figs are very good, and the bad ones, very bad, which cannot be eaten due to rottenness.”

4Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 5“This is what the LORD, the God of Israel says: ‘Like these good figs, so I will regard as good the captives of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans. 6For I will set My eyes on them for good, and I will bring them back to this land; and I will build them up and not overthrow them, and I will plant them and not uproot them. 7I will also give them a heart to know Me, for I am the LORD; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me wholeheartedly.

8‘But like the bad figs which cannot be eaten due to rottenness,’ indeed, this is what the LORD says, ‘so will I give up Zedekiah king of Judah and his officials, and the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land, and the ones who live in the land of Egypt. 9I will make them an object of terror and an evil for all the kingdoms of the earth, as a disgrace and a proverb, a taunt and a curse in all the places where I will scatter them. 10And I will send the sword, the famine, and the plague upon them until they are eliminated from the land which I gave to them and their forefathers.’”