1. After Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar had deported Judah’s King Jeconiah, King Jehoiakim’s son, and the Judean officials, as well as the craftsmen and metalworkers from Jerusalem to Babylon, the Lord showed me two baskets of figs set in front of the Lord’s temple.
2. One basket was filled with fresh and ripe figs; the other basket was filled with rotten figs—too rotten to eat.
3. And the Lord asked me: "What do you see, Jeremiah?"I replied: "Figs! Some good ones and others very bad—so bad that they can’t be eaten."
4. Then the Lord said to me:
5. The Lord, the God of Israel, proclaims: Just as with these good figs, I will treat kindly the Judean exiles that I have sent from this place to Babylon.