Chapter 24

By a parable of good and evil figs, is signified ℣.5 the reduction of the penitent from captivity: ℣.8 and the vexation of those, that stayed in Jerusalem, or fled into Ægypt.

1. 1

   Our Lord shewed me: & behold two baskets full of figs, set before the temple of our Lord: after that Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon transported Jechonias the son of Joakim the king of Juda, and his Princes, and the craftsman, & incloser of Jerusalem, and had brought them into Babylon.

2. 2

   One basket had very good figs: as the figs of the prime time are wont to be: and one basket had very naughty figs, which could not be eaten, because they were naught.

3. 3

   And our Lord said to me: What seest thou Jeremy? And I said: Figs: the good figs, exceeding good, and the naughty figs, exceeding naught: which can not be eaten because they are naught.

4. 4

   And the word of our Lord was made to me, saying:

5. 5

   Thus saith our Lord the God of Israel: As are these good figs: so will I know the transmigration of Juda, which I have sent forth out of this place into the land of Chaldees, unto good.

6. 6

   And I will set mine eyes upon them to be pacified, and I will bring them again into this land: and I will build them, and not destroy: and I will plant them and not pluck them up.

7. 7

   And I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the Lord: and they shall be my people, & I will be their God: because they shall return to me in all their heart.

8. 8

   And as are the very naughty figs, that can not be eaten, because they are naught: thus saith our Lord, so will I give Sedecias the king of Juda: and his Princes, and the rest of Jerusalem, that have remained in this city, and that dwell in the Land of Ægypt.

9. 9

   And I will give them into vexation, and affliction, to all the kingdoms of the earth: into reproach, and to be a parable, and into a proverb, and into malediction in all places, to which I have cast them out.

10. 10

    And I will send among them the sword, famine, and pestilence: till they be consumed out of the land, which I gave them, and their fathers.