Mark 4:26-34

New American Standard Bible 1995

Parable of the Seed

²⁶ And He was saying, “The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil; ²⁷ and he goes to bed at night and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts and grows—how, he himself does not know. ²⁸ The soil produces crops by itself; first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head. ²⁹ But when the crop permits, he immediately ^[a](A)puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

Parable of the Mustard Seed

^30 (B)And He said, “How shall we ^[b](C)picture the kingdom of God, or by what parable shall we present it? ³¹ It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the soil, though it is smaller than all the seeds that are upon the soil, ³² yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and forms large branches; so that ^(D)the birds of the ^[c]air can nest under its shade.”

³³ With many such parables He was speaking the word to them, so far as they were able to hear it; ³⁴ and He did not speak to them ^(E)without a parable; but He was ^(F)explaining everything privately to His own disciples.