3 Then the Lord asked me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?”I said, “Figs. The good figs are very good, and the bad are very bad, so bad that can’t be eaten.”
4 the Lord’s word came to me, saying,
5 “the Lord, the God of Israel says: ‘Like these good figs, so I will regard the captives of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Kasdim, for good.
6 For I will set my eyes on them for good, and I will bring them again to this land. I will build them, and not pull them down. I will plant them, and not pluck them up.
7 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 their whole heart.
8 “‘As the bad figs, which can’t be eaten, they are so bad,’ surely the Lord says, ‘So I will give up Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes, and the remnant of Jerusalem, who remain in this land, and those who dwell in the land of Egypt.
9 I will even give them up to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth for evil; to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places where I will drive them.