Daily Bible Reading Saturday 25th October 2025
Jeremiah 24
The Good Figs and the Bad Figs
24:1 After Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had taken 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: behold, 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, “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. I will build them up, and not tear 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, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart.
8 “But thus says the LORD: Like the bad figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten, so will I treat Zedekiah the king of Judah, his officials, the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land, and those who dwell in the land of Egypt. 9 I will make them a horror1 to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a reproach, a byword, a taunt, and a curse in all the places where I shall drive them. 10 And I will send sword, famine, and pestilence upon them, until they shall be utterly destroyed from the land that I gave to them and their fathers.”
Footnotes
[1] 24:9
Compare Septuagint; Hebrew horror for evil (ESV)
Teaching by Rev. William Moody
The vision of the two baskets of figs is very clear (v1). At this point Jeconiah (also known as Jehoiachin) has been taken into captive with many other inhabitants from Jerusalem including craftsmen and metal workers.
These people will be considered by the Lord as the good figs. What we see here is an act of grace, because really at this point they are no better than the others who would remain and be classed as the bad figs. But what would happen is that God’s grace would work in the heart of these exiles to transform their hearts and eventually bring them back as a new people (v6-7).
Those who would remain at Jerusalem, including King Zedekiah, Jeconiah’s uncle who was appointed king by the Babylonians, they and others who had escaped to Egypt would be classed as the bad figs (v8-10), a people who would continue in their sinful ways and who would receive God’s judgment upon them.
This chapter and the vision of two baskets of good and bad figs, highlights how in this world there will be a people who will receive the Lord’s blessing and serve Him faithfully and a people who will receive God’s judgment for their sinful rejection of the Lord. The difference between the two groups is grace. Grace is doing for His chosen people what they don’t deserve and what they can’t do for themselves. Has this grace come into and transformed your life?