Add parallel Print Page Options

In the morning sow your seed, and at evening do not let your hands be idle, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good.(A)

Read full chapter

10 He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.[a] 11 You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us,

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 9.10 Or benevolence

10 For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
    and do not return there until they have watered the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
    giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,(A)

Read full chapter

You have sown much and harvested little; you eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and you that earn wages earn wages to put them into a bag with holes.(A)

“Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider how you have fared. Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored, says the Lord.(B) You have looked for much, but it came to little, and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? says the Lord of hosts. Because my house lies in ruins, while all of you hurry off to your own houses.(C) 10 Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce.(D) 11 And I have called for a drought[a] on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the soil produces, on humans and animals, and on all their labors.”(E)

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 1.11 Or ruin

12 Sow for yourselves righteousness;
    reap steadfast love;
    break up your fallow ground,
for it is time to seek the Lord,
    that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.(A)

Read full chapter

The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.(A)

Read full chapter

11 But now I will not deal with the remnant of this people as in the former days, says the Lord of hosts. 12 For there shall be a sowing of peace; the vine shall yield its fruit, the ground shall give its produce, and the skies shall give their dew, and I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these things.(A)

Read full chapter

36 The reaper is already receiving[a] wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together.(A) 37 For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’(B) 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 4.36 Or . . . the fields are already ripe for harvesting. The reaper is receiving

17 I struck you and every work of your hands with blight and mildew and hail, yet you did not return to me, says the Lord.(A) 18 Consider from this day on, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month. Since the day that the foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid, consider:(B) 19 Is there any seed left in the barn? Do the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree still yield nothing? From this day on I will bless you.”

Read full chapter

What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.

Read full chapter

The Parable of the Growing Seed

26 He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground(A) 27 and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. 28 The earth produces of itself first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. 29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle because the harvest has come.”(B)

Read full chapter

10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.(A)

Read full chapter

proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage with the utmost patience in teaching.(A)

Read full chapter

20 But among them were some men of Cyprus and Cyrene who, on coming to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists[a] also, proclaiming the Lord Jesus.(A) 21 The hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number became believers and turned to the Lord.(B)

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 11.20 Other ancient authorities read Greeks

Take Life as It Comes

All this I laid to heart, examining it all, how the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God; whether it is love or hate one does not know. Everything that confronts them

Read full chapter