Jeremiah 23:33-24:10

New Living Translation

False Prophecies and False Prophets

³³ “Suppose one of the people or one of the prophets or priests asks you, ‘What prophecy has the Lord burdened you with now?’ You must reply, ‘You are the burden!^[a] The Lord says he will abandon you!’

³⁴ “If any prophet, priest, or anyone else says, ‘I have a prophecy from the Lord,’ I will punish that person along with his entire family. ³⁵ You should keep asking each other, ‘What is the Lord’s answer?’ or ‘What is the Lord saying?’ ³⁶ But stop using this phrase, ‘prophecy from the Lord.’ For people are using it to give authority to their own ideas, turning upside down the words of our God, the living God, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.

³⁷ “This is what you should say to the prophets: ‘What is the Lord’s answer?’ or ‘What is the Lord saying?’ ³⁸ But suppose they respond, ‘This is a prophecy from the Lord!’ Then you should say, ‘This is what the Lord says: Because you have used this phrase, “prophecy from the Lord,” even though I warned you not to use it, ³⁹ I will forget you completely.^[b] I will expel you from my presence, along with this city that I gave to you and your ancestors. ⁴⁰ And I will make you an object of ridicule, and your name will be infamous throughout the ages.’”

Good and Bad Figs

24 After King Nebuchadnezzar^[c] of Babylon exiled Jehoiachin^[d] son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, to Babylon along with the officials of Judah and all the craftsmen and artisans, the Lord gave me this vision. I saw two baskets of figs placed in front of the Lord’s Temple in Jerusalem. ² One basket was filled with fresh, ripe figs, while the other was filled with bad figs that were too rotten to eat.

³ Then the Lord said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?”

I replied, “Figs, some very good and some very bad, too rotten to eat.”

⁴ Then the Lord gave me this message: ⁵ “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: The good figs represent the exiles I sent from Judah to the land of the Babylonians.^{[e] 6} I will watch over and care for them, and I will bring them back here again. I will build them up and not tear them down. I will plant them and not uproot them. ⁷ I will give them hearts that recognize me as the Lord. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me wholeheartedly.

⁸ “But the bad figs,” the Lord said, “represent King Zedekiah of Judah, his officials, all the people left in Jerusalem, and those who live in Egypt. I will treat them like bad figs, too rotten to eat. ⁹ I will make them an object of horror and a symbol of evil to every nation on earth. They will be disgraced and mocked, taunted and cursed, wherever I scatter them. ¹⁰ And I will send war, famine, and disease until they have vanished from the land of Israel, which I gave to them and their ancestors.”