1Yahweh showed me two baskets of figs placed in front of Yahweh’s temple. This was after King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had taken Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, the leaders of Judah, and the craftsmen and metalworkers from Jerusalem into captivity and brought them to Babylon.
2One basket held very good figs, like the first ripe figs, and the other basket held very bad figs, so rotten they couldn't be eaten.
3Then Yahweh asked me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” I replied, “Figs. The good figs are very good, and the bad ones are very bad, so bad they cannot be eaten.”
4Yahweh’s word came to me, saying,
5“Yahweh, the God of Israel, says: ‘Just like these good figs, I will look favorably on the exiles from Judah whom I sent out of this place to the land of the Chaldeans.
6For I will watch over 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.
7I will give them a heart to know me, that I am Yahweh. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart.
8“‘As for the bad figs, which are so rotten they cannot be eaten,’ Yahweh certainly says, ‘So I will abandon King Zedekiah of Judah, his officials, and the remaining people of Jerusalem who stay in this land, as well as those who live in the land of Egypt.
9I will make them an object of dread, tossed among all the kingdoms of the earth for evil. They will become a disgrace, a proverb, a mockery, and a curse in all the places where I scatter them.
10I will send the sword, famine, and sickness among them until they are wiped out from the land that I gave to them and their ancestors.’”