Mark 4:1

¹³He went out again by the seaside. All the multitude came to him, and he taught them.

¹Now while the multitude pressed on him and heard the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret. ²He saw two boats standing by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. ³He entered into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and asked him to put out a little from the land. He sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat.

⁴When a great multitude came together and people from every city were coming to him, he spoke by a parable: ⁵“The farmer went out to sow his seed. As he sowed, some fell along the road, and it was trampled under foot, and the birds of the sky devoured it. ⁶Some seed fell on the rock, and as soon as it grew, it withered away, because it had no moisture. ⁷Some fell amid the thorns, and the thorns grew with it and choked it. ⁸Some fell into the good ground and grew and produced one hundred times as much fruit.” As he said these things, he called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

⁹Then his disciples asked him, “What does this parable mean?”

¹⁰He said, “To you it is given to know the mysteries of God’s Kingdom, but to the rest it is given in parables, that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’

⁷Jesus withdrew to the sea with his disciples; and a great multitude followed him from Galilee, from Judea,

¹On that day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the seaside. ²Great multitudes gathered to him, so that he entered into a boat and sat; and all the multitude stood on the beach. ³He spoke to them many things in parables, saying, “Behold, a farmer went out to sow. ⁴As he sowed, some seeds fell by the roadside, and the birds came and devoured them. ⁵Others fell on rocky ground, where they didn’t have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, because they had no depth of earth. ⁶When the sun had risen, they were scorched. Because they had no root, they withered away. ⁷Others fell among thorns. The thorns grew up and choked them. ⁸Others fell on good soil and yielded fruit: some one hundred times as much, some sixty, and some thirty. ⁹He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

¹⁰The disciples came, and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?”

¹¹He answered them, “To you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but it is not given to them. ¹²For whoever has, to him will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever doesn’t have, from him will be taken away even that which he has. ¹³Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they don’t see, and hearing, they don’t hear, neither do they understand. ¹⁴In them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says, ‘By hearing you will hear, and will in no way understand; Seeing you will see, and will in no way perceive; ¹⁵for this people’s heart has grown callous, their ears are dull of hearing, and they have closed their eyes; or else perhaps they might perceive with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heart, and would turn again, and I would heal them.’