¹The Lord showed me a vision, and there were two baskets of figs placed before the temple of the Lord after Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon had deported Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, and the officers of Judah and the craftsmen and the blacksmiths, from Jerusalem, and he had brought them to Babylon. ²One basket was of very good figs, like early figs, but the other basket was of very bad figs, which could not be eaten because of their putridity. ³And the Lord said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” And I said, “Figs. The good figs are very good, and the bad ones are very bad, and they cannot be eaten because of their putridity.” ⁴And the word of the Lord came to me and said, ⁵“This is what the Lord God of Israel says: ‘As these good figs are, so I will take ownership of the deportation of Judah, whom I will have sent out from this place to the land of the Chaldeans, for their own good. ⁶And I will direct my eye to them for their own good, and I will bring them back to this land, and I will build them up, and not break them down, and I will plant them and not pluck them up. ⁷And I will give them a heart to know me, for I am the Lord, and they will be a people to me, and I will be God to them, when they return to me with all their heart. ⁸And as the bad figs are, which could not be eaten because of their putridity, contrariwise this is what the Lord says: «So I will hand over Zedekiah king of Judah, and his officers and the remainder of Jerusalem, and those who remain in this land, and those who are living in the land of Egypt, ⁹and I will make them a target of terror to their detriment, in all the kingdoms of the earth, as a reproach and a byword, and an object of taunting and of cursing, in all the places to which I will drive them. ¹⁰And I will send against them the sword, famine, and a plague, until they are consumed off the land which I gave to them and to their fathers.» ’ ”