Jeremiah 24

¹ The LORD showed me, and behold, two baskets of figs were set before the LORD’s temple, after Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the princes of Judah, with the craftsmen and smiths, from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon.

² One basket had very good figs, like the figs that are first-ripe; and the other basket had very bad figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad.

³ Then the LORD asked me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” I said, “Figs. The good figs are very good, and the bad are very bad, so bad that they can’t be eaten.”

⁴ The LORD’s word came to me, saying,

⁵ “The LORD, the God of Israel says: ‘Like these good figs, so I will regard the captives of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans, as good.

⁶ For I will set my eyes on them for good, and I will bring them again to this land. I will build them, and not pull them down. I will plant them, and not pluck them up.

⁷ 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 their whole heart.

⁸ “‘As the bad figs, which can’t be eaten, they are so bad,’ surely the LORD says, ‘So I will give up Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes, and the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land, and those who dwell in the land of Egypt.

⁹ I will even give them up to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth for evil, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places where I will drive them.

¹⁰ I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence among them, until they are consumed from off the land that I gave to them and to their fathers.’”

Around Jeremiah 24

Context

Context for this book is being written. A note appears here only once it names its sources.

AI explanation

About Jeremiah as a whole · Written by an AI model · Not reviewed by a theological reader

This explanation was written by an AI model to help you get started. It names no sources and can contain mistakes. Scripture comes first, and context with sources is shown separately on this page.

What this book is about

Before Jeremiah can speak, God has already spoken of him: “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.” That is how the book tells his calling, and the calling is heavy. He prophesied in Judah’s last decades, up to and beyond the destruction of Jerusalem. He calls the people to turn back to God, and he warns that the temple will not protect them. Kings, priests and other prophets oppose him. The book lets us hear his own anguished prayers, so that we see not only the message but the man who had to carry it.

In the middle of the warnings stands a promise. God says he will make “a new covenant”, and of his law he says, “I will write it in their heart” (31:31 to 34).

Background

Jeremiah’s ministry ran from about 627 to after 586 before Christ. His scribe Baruch wrote down his words. The book is not in time order, so a reader should expect to move back and forth across those years. The ancient Greek version is shorter than the Hebrew and arranged differently, and it shows that the book itself was handed down with care.

How Christians read it

The promise of a new covenant is taken up at the Last Supper and quoted in full in Hebrews 8. Jeremiah 29:11 is one of the most quoted verses in the Bible. In its setting it is addressed to a whole people in exile and comes with the news that they will stay there for seventy years, which guards against reading it as a promise of quick relief.

About this explanation

Written by Claude Sonnet 5.5, an AI model, on 20 October 2026. It draws on the WEB text and general knowledge and was not checked against sources by a person. Every quotation from Scripture is checked automatically against the WEB text.

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