[For years the Lord warned the people of Israel to return to Him for they had become very wicked. Because they would not listen, He sent the Babylonians to take them captive.] The remainder of the people in the city and the Jewish deserters who had declared their allegiance to the king of Babylon were all taken as exiles to Babylon. But the poorest of the people were left to farm the land. After Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the officials of Judah with the craftsmen and smiths from Jerusalem and had brought them to Babylon, the Lord showed me: [Jeremiah] behold, two baskets of figs set before the temple of the Lord!

   One basket had very good figs, like first-ripe figs; and the other basket had very bad figs, which could not be eaten due to rottenness. Then the Lord said to me, "What do you see, Jeremiah?" I replied, "Figs, some very good and some very bad."

   Then the word of the Lord came to me saying, "Thus says the Lord God of Israel, 'Like these good figs, so I will regard as good the captives of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans. For I will set My eyes on them for good, and I will bring them again to this land; and I will build them up and not overthrow them, and I will plant them and not pluck them up. I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the Lord. They will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with all their heart.

   " 'But the rotten figs represent Zedekiah, king of Judah, his officials and all the others of Jerusalem left here in this land; those too who live in Egypt. I will treat them like spoiled figs, too bad to use. I will make them repulsive to every nation of the earth, and they shall be mocked and taunted and cursed wherever I compel them to go. And I will send massacre and famine and disease among them until they are destroyed from the land of Israel, which I have given to them and to their fathers.

   " '. . . Then it will be when seventy years are completed I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation,' declares the Lord, 'for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans; and I will make it an everlasting desolation.' "

Taken from II Kings 25, Jeremiah 24, 25, The New American Standard, The Living Bible,
and The New International Version. For free Lifescope book, write to Box 1575,
Carlsbad, NM 88221. Please send $1.00 for postage and handling.