The Good Figs and the Bad Figs

1 ^bAfter Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had ^ctaken into exile from Jerusalem Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, together with the officials of Judah, the craftsmen, and the metal workers, and had brought them to Babylon, the Lord showed me this vision: ^dbehold, two baskets of figs placed before the temple of the Lord. 2 One basket had very good figs, like first-ripe figs, but the other basket had very bad figs, so bad that they could not be eaten. 3 And the Lord said to me, ^e“What do you see, Jeremiah?” I said, “Figs, the good figs very good, and the bad figs very bad, so bad that they cannot be eaten.”

4 Then the word of the Lord came to me: 5 “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Like these good figs, so I will regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom I have sent away from this place to the land of the Chaldeans. 6 I will set my eyes on them for good, and I will bring them back to this land. ^fI will ^gbuild them up, and not tear them down; I will plant them, and not pluck them up. 7 ^hI will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord, and ⁱthey shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart.

8 “But thus says the Lord: Like the bad figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten, so will I treat Zedekiah the king of Judah, his officials, the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land, and ^jthose who dwell in the land of Egypt. 9 I will make them a horror¹ to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a reproach, a byword, a taunt, and a curse in all the places where I shall drive them. 10 And I will send ^ksword, famine, and pestilence upon them, until they shall be utterly destroyed from the land that I gave to them and their fathers.”

19 You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For ^zwho can resist his will?” 20 But ^awho are you, O man, to answer back to God? ^bWill what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” 21 ^cHas the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump ^done vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? 22 What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much ^epatience vessels of wrath ^fprepared for destruction, 23 in order to make known the ^griches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has ^hprepared beforehand for glory— 24 even us whom he has called, ⁱnot from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? 25 As indeed he says in Hosea,

27 And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: ^l“Though ^mthe number of the sons of Israel¹ be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved, 28 for the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay.” 29 And as Isaiah predicted,

Israel’s Unbelief

30 ^oWhat shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a ^prighteousness that is by faith; 31 but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness^{2 q}did not succeed in reaching that law. 32 Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the ^rstumbling stone, 33 as it is written,

Jesus Heals a Man Born Blind

1 As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, ^zwho sinned, this man ^aor his parents, that he was born blind?” 3 Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but ^bthat the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 We must work the works of him who sent me ^cwhile it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, ^dI am the ^elight of the world.” 6 Having said these things, he ^fspit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he ^ganointed the man’s eyes with the mud 7 and said to him, ^h“Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.

8 The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, ⁱ“Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” 9 Some said, “It is he.” ^jOthers said, “No, but he is like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” 10 So they said to him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” 11 He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed and received my sight.” 12 They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”

13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. 14 ^kNow it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. 15 So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. And he said to them, “He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.” 16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not ^lfrom God, ^mfor he does not keep the Sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” And there was a ⁿdivision among them. 17 So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him, since he has ^oopened your eyes?” He said, ^p“He is a prophet.”