Jeremiah 24
About JeremiahWritten by AI
Jeremiah is a book of prophecy from the final, painful decades of the kingdom of Judah. Jeremiah was a priest's son from Anathoth, called as a young man around 627 BC. He preached for about forty years, through the reigns of Josiah's sons, the Babylonian sieges, and the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC. His scribe Baruch helped write his words down.
The book is not in time order. Sermons, poems, personal laments, and stories are grouped by theme, so a chapter set under Jehoiakim may be followed by one from Zedekiah's reign. The opening verses of a chapter often tell you which king is on the throne, and it helps to watch for them.
The big movement is from warning to judgment to hope. Jeremiah calls a stubborn people back to God, suffers for it, and watches the city fall. Yet in the middle of the book God promises a new covenant, written on the heart. Watch also for Jeremiah's honest prayers of complaint, some of the rawest in Scripture.
Before you read Jeremiah 24Written by AI
After King Jehoiachin and many leaders were taken to Babylon, God shows Jeremiah two baskets of figs, one very good and one rotten. Surprisingly, the good figs are the exiles. God will watch over them and give them a heart to know Him. Those who stayed and trusted in the city are the bad figs.
The Good and Bad Figs
After Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, as well as the officials of Judah and the craftsmen and metalsmiths from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon, the LORD showed me two baskets of figs placed in front of the temple of the LORD. One basket had very good figs, like those that ripen early, but the other basket contained very poor figs, so bad they could not be eaten.
“Jeremiah,” the LORD asked, “what do you see?”
“Figs!” I replied. “The good figs are very good, but the bad figs are very bad, so bad they cannot be eaten.”
Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Like these good figs, so I regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom I have sent away from this place to the land of the Chaldeans. I will keep My eyes on them for good and will return them to this land. I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and not uproot them. 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 like the bad figs, so bad they cannot be eaten,’ says the LORD, ‘so will I deal with Zedekiah king of Judah, his officials, and the remnant of Jerusalem—those remaining in this land and those living in the land of Egypt. I will make them a horror and an offense to all the kingdoms of the earth, a disgrace and an object of scorn, ridicule, and cursing wherever I have banished them. And I will send against them sword and famine and plague, until they have perished from the land that I gave to them and their fathers.’”