UNROLL
Early summer morning in a hillside orchard: a broad fig tree with big green leaves and the first dark ripe figs among them, Jerusalem’s temple height small and far off across the valley.

Shepherds and prophets

Jeremiah 24

When hard things happen to you, do you assume God has given up on you?

10 verses≈ 3 minBSB

Images are artistic interpretations.

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Where we are

  1. 1The callJosiah’s thirteenth year (about 627 BC): a prophet to the nations
  2. 2–6Return to MeBroken cisterns, faithless Judah, disaster from the north
  3. 7–10The temple gateThe temple sermon, a weeping prophet, the living God
  4. 11–20Covenant and complaintThe broken covenant, the potter, Jeremiah’s confessions
  5. 21–29Shepherds and prophetsKings judged, the Branch, seventy years, the yoke, the letterChapter 24
  6. 30–33The Book of ComfortRestoration, the new covenant, a field bought in a siege
  7. 34–39The last days of JudahThe scroll burned, the cistern, Jerusalem falls (586 BC)
  8. 40–45After the fallGedaliah at Mizpah, the flight to Egypt, a word for Baruch
  9. 46–51The nationsEgypt to Babylon: the LORD is Judge of all the earth
  10. 52Jerusalem fallsThe record of 586 BC, and a king released

The Good and Bad Figs

Jeremiah
Jeremiah

After Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, as well as the officials of Judah and the craftsmen and metalsmiths from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon, the LORD showed me two baskets of figs placed in front of the temple of the LORD.

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Jeremiah
Morning on the stone paving before the temple porch: two woven baskets side by side, the left heaped with plump glossy dark figs, the right with split, shriveled, spoiled figs; no one there.

One basket had very good figs, like those that ripen early, but the other basket contained very poor figs, so bad they could not be eaten.

God

“Jeremiah,” the LORD asked, “what do you see?”

Jeremiah

“Figs!” I replied. “The good figs are very good, but the bad figs are very bad, so bad they cannot be eaten.”

Question

Quick question

Jeremiah saw something set out in front of the temple. Look back at 24:1–2.

What did the LORD show Jeremiah in front of the temple?

God
Seen from very far off at evening, a long thin line of small walking people with bundles and laden donkeys winds east across a wide brown plain, their dust lit gold by the low sun behind them.

Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Like these good figs, so I regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom I have sent away from this place to the land of the Chaldeans.

God
God

I will keep My eyes on them for good and will return them to this land. I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and not uproot them.

God

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 all their heart.

Jeremiah 24:7

God
Close and low on a basket of spoiled figs in gray light: split, shriveled, gray-molded fruit, the reed weave of the basket dark and damp.

But like the bad figs, so bad they cannot be eaten,’ says the LORD, ‘so will I deal with Zedekiah king of Judah, his officials, and the remnant of Jerusalem—those remaining in this land and those living in the land of Egypt.

God
God

I will make them a horror and an offense to all the kingdoms of the earth, a disgrace and an object of scorn, ridicule, and cursing wherever I have banished them. And I will send against them sword and famine and plague, until they have perished from the land that I gave to them and their fathers.’”

Pray

Pray

Lord, You kept Your eyes on the exiles for good. When I am far from where I wanted to be, plant me and do not uproot me. Give me a heart to know You, and turn me back to You with all my heart. Amen.

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Jeremiah 24

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A verse to carry with you

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 all their heart.

Jeremiah 24:7

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