The Two Baskets of Figs

The Lord showed Jeremiah a pair of baskets set before the temple. It happened after Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon had carried away Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, the princes of Judah, the craftsmen, and the smiths from Jerusalem to Babylon. One basket held figs of the first-ripe kind, very good. The other held figs so bad they could not be eaten.

The Lord asked Jeremiah what he saw. Jeremiah answered plainly: figs. The good figs were very good; the bad figs were so bad they could not be eaten.

Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah. The Lord God of Israel said that just as those good figs were good, so he would regard the captives of Judah whom he had sent out of that place into the land of the Chaldeans. He would set his eyes on them for good.

The Lord said he would bring them back to this land. He would build them and not pull them down. He would plant them and not pluck them up.

He would give them a heart to know him, that he is the Lord. They would be his people, and he would be their God. They would return to him with their whole heart.

But as for the bad figs that could not be eaten, the Lord said he would give up Zedekiah king of Judah, his princes, and the residue of Jerusalem who remained in the land, along with those who dwelled in the land of Egypt. He would give them up to be tossed to and fro among all the kingdoms of the earth for evil.

They would become a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse in all places where the Lord would drive them. He would send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence among them until they were consumed from the land he had given to them and to their fathers.

The vision drew a hard line. The exiles in Babylon were not the rejected ones. The Lord had sent them there for their good. The ones who stayed in the land under Zedekiah, who thought they had escaped, were the ones marked for destruction. The figs did not lie.