³ “Listen! A sower went out to sow.

⁵ Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?^(A)

⁶ I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. ⁷ So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. ⁸ The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and each will receive wages according to their own labor.^{(A) 9} For we are God’s coworkers, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.^(B)

³⁵ Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting.^{(A) 36} The reaper is already receiving^[a] wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together.^{(B) 37} For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’^{(C) 38} I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”

⁵ “A sower went out to sow his seed, and as he sowed some fell on a path and was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up. ⁶ Some fell on rock, and as it grew up it withered for lack of moisture. ⁷ Some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew with it and choked it. ⁸ Some fell into good soil, and when it grew it produced a hundredfold.” As he said this, he called out, “If you have ears to hear, then hear!”^(A)

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)

²⁶ So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well.

Moses Commands Obedience

4 “So now, Israel, give heed to the statutes and ordinances that I am teaching you to observe, so that you may live to enter and occupy the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you.^(A)

²⁹ Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.

¹¹ Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. Whoever conquers will not be harmed by the second death.^(A)