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Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried into exile Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, and the officials of Judah, together with the craftsmen and metalsmiths from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon, the Lord showed me two baskets of figs placed in front of the Temple of the Lord. 2 One basket had very good figs, like the figs that ripen early, but the other basket had very poor figs, that were so bad they could not be eaten.
3 Then the Lord said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?”
I answered, “Figs, and the good figs are very good, but the bad figs are very bad, so bad that they cannot be eaten.”
4 Then the word of the Lord came to me: 5 “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Like these good figs, I regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom I have sent away from this place to the land of the Chaldeans. 6 I will set My eyes upon them for their good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and not uproot them. 7 I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the Lord; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart’.
8 “But as for the bad figs, which are so bad that they cannot be eaten, this is what the Lord says, ‘Like these good figs, so will I deal with Zedekiah king of Judah, his officials, and the remnant of Jerusalem, whether they remain in this land or live in the land of Egypt. 9 I will make them an object of horror and an offence to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a disgrace and a byword, an object of ridicule and a curse in all the places where I will banish them. 10 I will send the sword, famine, and pestilence among them, until they are totally consumed from off the land that I gave to them and their fathers’.”