Mark 4:1-9

Evangelical Heritage Version

The Parable of the Sower

4 Another time Jesus began to teach by the sea. Such a large crowd gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the sea. The whole crowd was on the seashore. ² Then he taught them many things in parables. As he taught them, he said, ³ “Listen! There was a sower who went out to sow. ⁴ As he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. ⁵ Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up right away because it did not have deep soil. ⁶ When the sun rose, it was scorched, and because it did not have much root, it withered. ⁷ Some seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, so it did not produce fruit. ⁸ Still other seed fell on good ground and yielded fruit, sprouting and growing and producing a crop: some thirty, some sixty, and some one hundred times as much as was sown.” ⁹ Then Jesus said, “Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear.”