Baskets of Figs and the Returnees
1After Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the officials of Judah with the craftsmen and smiths from Jerusalem and had brought them to Babylon, the L
ORD showed me: behold, two baskets of figs set before the temple of the L
ORD!
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 L
ORD said to me, What do you see, Jeremiah? And I said, Figs, the good figs, very good; and the bad
figs, very bad, which cannot be eaten due to rottenness.
4Then the word of the L
ORD came to me, saying,
5Thus says the L
ORD God of Israel, 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 again to this land; and I will build them up and not overthrow them, and I will plant them and not pluck them up.
7I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the L
ORD; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart.
8But like the bad figs which cannot be eaten due to rottennessindeed, thus says the L
ORDso I will abandon Zedekiah king of Judah and his officials, and the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land and the ones who dwell in the land of Egypt.
9I will make them a terror
and an evil for all the kingdoms of the earth, as a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse in all places where I will scatter them.
10I will send the sword, the famine and the pestilence upon them until they are destroyed from the land which I gave to them and their forefathers.
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