JEREMIAH 24 [†] j After Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had taken into exile from Jerusalem  k Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, together with  l the officials of Judah, the craftsmen, and the metal workers, and had brought them to Babylon, the LORD showed me this vision: behold,  m two baskets of figs placed before the temple of the LORD. 2One basket had very good figs,  n like first-ripe figs, but the other basket had  o very bad figs, so bad that they could not be eaten. 3[†]And the LORD said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” I said, “Figs, the good figs very good, and the bad figs very bad, so bad that they cannot be eaten.”

4Then the word of the LORD came to me: 5[^][†]“Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Like these good figs, so I will regard as good the exiles from Judah,  p whom I have sent away from this place to the land of the Chaldeans. 6[†] q I will set my eyes on them for good, and I will bring them back to this land.  r I will build them up, and not tear them down;  s I will plant them, and not pluck them up. 7[^][†] t I will give them a heart to know that I am the LORD,  u and they shall be my people  u and I will be their God,  v for they shall return to me with their whole heart.

8[†]“But thus says the LORD: Like  w the bad figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten, so will I treat  x Zedekiah the king of Judah, his officials, the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land, and those who  y dwell in the land of Egypt. 9[†]I will make them  z a horror [1] to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be  a a reproach,  b a byword,  a a taunt, and  c a curse in all the places where I shall drive them. 10[†]And I will send  d sword, famine, and pestilence upon them, until they shall be utterly destroyed from the land that I gave to them and their fathers.”