Jeremiah 24-26

Common English Bible

Good and bad figs

24 After Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar had deported Judah’s King Jeconiah, King Jehoiakim’s son, and the Judean officials, as well as the craftsmen and metalworkers from Jerusalem to Babylon, the Lord showed me two baskets of figs set in front of the Lord’s temple. ² One basket was filled with fresh and ripe figs; the other basket was filled with rotten figs—too rotten to eat. ³ And the Lord asked me: “What do you see, Jeremiah?”

I replied: “Figs! Some good ones and others very bad—so bad that they can’t be eaten.”

⁴ Then the Lord said to me: ⁵ The Lord, the God of Israel, proclaims: Just as with these good figs, I will treat kindly the Judean exiles that I have sent from this place to Babylon. ⁶ I regard them as good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up and not pull them down; I will plant them and not dig them up. ⁷ I will give them a heart to know me, for 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. ⁸ And just like the rotten figs that are so bad that they can’t be eaten, the Lord says, I will do to Judah’s King Zedekiah and his officials, as well as the remaining few in Jerusalem and those who are living in Egypt. ⁹ I will make them an object of horror and evil to all the kingdoms of the earth. Wherever I scatter them, they will be disgraced and insulted, mocked and cursed. ¹⁰ I will send the sword, famine, and disease against them until they vanish from the fertile land that I gave to their ancestors.

A summary of Jeremiah’s message

25 Jeremiah received the Lord’s word concerning all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Judah’s King Jehoiakim, Josiah’s son. This was the first year of Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar. ² The prophet Jeremiah addressed all the people of Judah and all those living in Jerusalem. ³ From the thirteenth year of Judah’s King Josiah, Amon’s son, to this very day—twenty-three years—the Lord’s word has come to me. I have delivered it to you repeatedly, although you wouldn’t listen. ⁴ In fact, the Lord has tirelessly sent you all his servants, the prophets, but you wouldn’t listen or pay attention. ⁵ They said, “Each one of you, turn from your evil ways and deeds and live in the fertile land that the Lord gave you and your ancestors for all time. ⁶ Don’t follow or worship other gods and don’t anger me by what you make with your hands. Then I won’t bring disaster upon you.” ⁷ But you wouldn’t listen to me, making me angry by what you do and bringing disaster upon yourselves, declares the Lord.

⁸ Therefore, this is what the Lord of heavenly forces says: Because you haven’t listened to my words, ⁹ I am going to muster all the tribes of the north and my servant King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, declares the Lord, and I will bring them against this country and its residents as well as against all the surrounding nations. I will completely destroy them and will make them an object of horror, shock, and ruins for all time. ¹⁰ I will silence the sounds of joy and laughter and the voices of the bride and the bridegroom. Yes, I will silence the millstones and snuff out the lamplight. ¹¹ This whole country will be reduced to a wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon for seventy years. ¹² When the seventy years are over, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation for their wrongdoing, declares the Lord. I will reduce the land of the Babylonians to a wasteland for all time. ¹³ I will unleash upon that land everything I decreed, all that is written in this scroll, which Jeremiah prophesied against all the nations. ¹⁴ Yes, many great nations and powerful kings will enslave them, and I will pay them back in full for what they have done and made with their hands.

¹⁵ This is what the Lord, God of Israel, said to me: Take this seething cup of wine from my hand and make all the nations gulp it down where I’m sending you. ¹⁶ They will drink and stagger about half-crazed because of the sword that I am sending against them.

¹⁷ So I took the cup from the Lord’s hand, and I made all the nations drink from it where the Lord had sent me: ¹⁸ Jerusalem and the towns of Judah, its kings and officials. This was to make them a wasteland, an object of horror, shock, and cursing, as it is today; ¹⁹ Pharaoh, Egypt’s king, his attendants and officials, and all his people, ²⁰ including the foreigners^[a] living there; all the kings of the land of Uz; all the kings of the land of the Philistines—Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and what’s left of Ashdod; ²¹ Edom, Moab, and the Ammonites; ²² all the kings of Tyre and Sidon, and the kings of the coastlands across the sea; ²³ Dedan, Tema, Buz, and all those who cut the hair of their foreheads;^{[b] 24} all the kings of Arabia and the nomadic tribes,^{[c] 25} all the kings of Zimri,^[d] Elam, and Media; ²⁶ all the kings of the north, those nearby and those faraway, one after another, all the empires on the earth will drink from this cup.^[e] And after them the king of Sheshach^[f] will drink from it.

²⁷ Then say to them: The Lord of heavenly forces, the God of Israel, proclaims: Drink this seething cup of wine and get drunk. Vomit and collapse and don’t get up again because of the sword that I’m thrusting into you. ²⁸ If they refuse to take the cup in your hand and drink from it, tell them: This is what the Lord of heavenly forces says: You must drink! ²⁹ Look! I’m bringing disaster upon the city that bears my name; how then will you escape unpunished? You will not! I’m summoning the sword against everyone on earth, declares the Lord of heavenly forces.

³³ At that time, those struck down by the Lord will fill the earth. And no one will mourn for them or prepare their bodies for burial. They will become like refuse lying on the ground.

Jeremiah arrested and sentenced to death

26 Early in the rule of Judah’s King Jehoiakim, Josiah’s son, this word came from the Lord: ² The Lord proclaims: Stand in the temple courtyard and speak to all the people of the towns of Judah who have come to the temple to worship. Tell them everything I command you; leave nothing out. ³ Perhaps they will listen and each will turn from their evil ways. If they do, I will relent and not carry out the harm I have in mind for them because of the wrong they have done. ⁴ So tell them, The Lord proclaims: If you don’t listen to me or follow the Instruction I have set before you— ⁵ if you don’t listen to the words of the prophets that I have sent to you time and again, though you haven’t listened, ⁶ then I will make this temple a ruin like Shiloh, and this city I will make a curse before all nations on earth.

⁷ The priests, the prophets, and all the people heard Jeremiah declare these words in the Lord’s temple. ⁸ And when Jeremiah finished saying everything the Lord told him to say, the priests and the prophets and all the people seized him and said, “You must die! ⁹ Why do you prophesy in the Lord’s name that ‘this temple will become a ruin like Shiloh, and this city will be destroyed and left without inhabitant’?” Then all the people joined ranks against Jeremiah in the Lord’s temple.

¹⁰ When the officials of Judah heard these things, they went up from the royal palace to the Lord’s temple and took their places at the entrance of the New Gate of the Lord’s temple. ¹¹ The priests and the prophets said to the officials and all the people: “This man deserves to die for prophesying against this city as you have all heard firsthand.”

¹² Jeremiah said to all the officials and to all the people, “The Lord sent me to prophesy to this temple and this city everything you have heard. ¹³ So now transform your ways and actions. Obey the Lord your God, and the Lord may relent and not carry out the harm that he’s pronounced against you. ¹⁴ But me? I’m in your hands. Do whatever you would like to me. ¹⁵ Only know for certain that if you sentence me to death, you and the people of this city will be guilty of killing an innocent man. The Lord has in fact sent me to speak everything I have said to you.”

¹⁶ Then the officials and all the people said to the priests and the prophets, “This man doesn’t deserve to die, for he has spoken to us in the name of the Lord our God.”

¹⁷ A few of the community elders got up and addressed the whole crowd: ¹⁸ “Micah of Moresheth, who prophesied during the rule of Judah’s Hezekiah, said to all the people of Judah, ‘The Lord of heavenly forces proclaims:

¹⁹ “Did King Hezekiah or anyone else in Judah execute him? Didn’t he instead fear the Lord and plead for his mercy? Then the Lord relented of the harm that he had pronounced against them. We are about to commit a huge mistake that will cost us our lives.”

²⁰ There was another man who prophesied in the Lord’s name: Uriah, Shemaiah’s son from Kiriath-jearim. He prophesied the same things that Jeremiah did about this city and against this land. ²¹ When King Jehoiakim and all his warriors and officials heard his words, the king sought to kill him. Uriah heard of this and fled in fear to Egypt. ²² But King Jehoiakim dispatched Elnathan, Achbor’s son, and others to Egypt. ²³ They brought Uriah back from Egypt to the king who had him killed, and his body was thrown into the common burial ground.

²⁴ But Ahikam, Shaphan’s son, protected Jeremiah and wouldn’t let the people execute him.