24 “As I live, declares the Lord, though qConiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were the rsignet ring on my right hand, yet I would tear you off 25 and give you into the hand of those who seek your life, sinto the hand of those of whom you are afraid, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and into the hand of the Chaldeans. 26 I will hurl you tand the umother who bore you into another country, where you were not born, and there you shall die. 27 But to the land to which they will long to return, there they shall not return.”
28 Is this man Coniah a despised, vbroken pot,
a vessel no one cares for?
Why are he and his children hurled and cast
into a land that they do not know?
29 O land, land, land,
hear the word of the Lord!
30 Thus says the Lord:
“Write this man down as childless,
a man who shall not succeed in his days,
for wnone of xhis offspring shall succeed
in sitting on the ythrone of David
and ruling again in Judah.”
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.
Jeremiah’s Letter to the Exiles
1 These are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders of the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. 2 This was eafter fKing Jeconiah and the queen mother, the eunuchs, the officials of Judah and Jerusalem, the gcraftsmen, and the metal workers had departed from Jerusalem.
12 “Say now to the rebellious house, eDo you not know what these things mean? Tell them, behold, the king of Babylon came to Jerusalem, and ftook her king and her princes and brought them to him to Babylon.
