A Story about a Farmer

13 That same day Jesus left the house and went out beside Lake Galilee, where he sat down to teach. ²  Such large crowds gathered around him that he had to sit in a boat, while the people stood on the shore. ³ Then he taught them many things by using stories. He said:

A farmer went out to scatter seed in a field. ⁴ While the farmer was scattering the seed, some of it fell along the road and was eaten by birds. ⁵ Other seeds fell on thin, rocky ground and quickly started growing because the soil wasn’t very deep. ⁶ But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched and dried up, because they did not have deep roots. ⁷ Some other seeds fell where thornbushes grew up and choked the plants. ⁸ But a few seeds did fall on good ground where the plants produced 100 or 60 or 30 times as much as was scattered. ⁹ If you have ears, pay attention!

Jesus Explains the Story about the Farmer

¹⁸ Now listen to the meaning of the story about the farmer:

¹⁹ The seeds that fell along the road are the people who hear the message about the kingdom, but don’t understand it. Then the evil one comes and snatches the message from their hearts. ²⁰ The seeds that fell on rocky ground are the people who gladly hear the message and accept it at once. ²¹ But they don’t have deep roots, and they don’t last very long. As soon as life gets hard or the message gets them in trouble, they give up.

²² The seeds that fell among the thornbushes are also people who hear the message. But they start worrying about the needs of this life and are fooled by the desire to get rich. So the message gets choked out, and they never produce anything.
²³ The seeds that fell on good ground are the people who hear and understand the message. They produce as much as 100 or 60 or 30 times what was planted.

 

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