Good Figs and Bad Figs

1After Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had deported Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the princes of Judah, with the artisans and smiths from Jerusalem and had brought them to Babylon, YHWH showed me two baskets of figs that were set before the temple of YHWH. 2One basket had very good figs, like the figs that had ripened early, and the other basket had very bad figs, so bad they could not be eaten.

3Then YHWH asked me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?”

I said, “Figs. The good figs are very good, and the bad are very bad, so bad that they can’t be eaten.”

4The word of YHWH came to me, saying, 5“YHWH, the God of Israel says: ‘Like these good figs, so I will regard the captives of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans, as good. 6For I will set my eyes on them for good, and I will bring them again to this land. I will build them, and not pull them down. I will plant them, and not pluck them up. 7I will give them a heart to know me, that I am YHWH. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with their whole heart.

8“‘As the bad figs, which can’t be eaten, they are so bad,’ surely YHWH says, ‘So I will give up Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes, and the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land, and those who dwell in the land of Egypt. 9I will even give them up to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth for evil, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places where I will drive them. 10I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence among them, until they are consumed from off the land that I gave to them and to their fathers.’”