Jeremiah 24

1Yahweh showed me two baskets of figs placed before the temple of Yahweh after Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon exiled Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, the princes of Judah, the craftsmen and the smiths from Jerusalem, bringing them to Babylon.

2One basket of very good figs, like first-ripe figs, and one basket of very bad figs that could not be eaten because of their badness.

3Yahweh said to me, "What do you see, Jeremiah?" I said, "Figs, the good figs very good, and the bad figs very bad, which cannot be eaten because of their badness."

4Then the word of Yahweh came to me, saying,

5Thus says Yahweh, God of Israel: Like these good figs, so will I regard Judah's exiles, whom I have sent from this place to the land of the Chaldeans for good.

6I will set my eyes upon them for good and bring them back to this land, and I will build them and not tear them down, and I will plant them and not uproot them.

7I will give them a heart to know me, that I am Yahweh; they will be my people, and I myself will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart.

8Like the bad figs that are too rotten to eat, thus says Yahweh: so I will give Zedekiah king of Judah, his princes, the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land, and those who dwell in the land of Egypt.

9I will give them over for horror and dismay, for calamity to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a reproach and a byword, a taunt and a curse, in all the places where I drive them.

10And I will send the sword, the famine, and the plague among them until they are destroyed from the land that I gave them and their fathers.