³ Then the Lord asked me, “What do you see,^(A) Jeremiah?”

“Figs,” I answered. “The good ones are very good, but the bad ones are so bad they cannot be eaten.”

⁸ “‘But like the bad^(A) figs, which are so bad they cannot be eaten,’ says the Lord, ‘so will I deal with Zedekiah^(B) king of Judah, his officials^(C) and the survivors^(D) from Jerusalem, whether they remain in this land or live in Egypt.^{(E) 9} I will make them abhorrent^(F) and an offense to all the kingdoms of the earth, a reproach and a byword,^(G) a curse^[a](H) and an object of ridicule, wherever I banish^(I) them. ¹⁰ I will send the sword,^(J) famine^(K) and plague^(L) against them until they are destroyed from the land I gave to them and their ancestors.^(M)’”