⁴ And as he was sowing, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up.

⁵ Other seed [of the same kind] fell on ground full of rocks, where it had not much soil; and at once it sprang up, because it had no depth of soil;

⁶ And when the sun came up, it was scorched, and because it had not taken root, it withered away.

⁷ Other seed [of the same kind] fell among thorn plants, and the thistles grew and pressed together and utterly choked and suffocated it, and it yielded no grain.

⁸ And other seed [of the same kind] fell into good (well-adapted) soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing, and yielded up to thirty times as much, and sixty times as much, and even a hundred times as much as had been sown.

⁹ And He said, He who has ears to hear, let him be hearing [and let him ^[a]consider, and comprehend].

¹⁰ And as soon as He was alone, those who were around Him, with the Twelve [apostles], began to ask Him about the parables.

¹¹ And He said to them, To you has been entrusted the mystery of the kingdom of God [that is, ^[b]the secret counsels of God which are hidden from the ungodly]; but for those outside [^[c]of our circle] everything becomes a parable,

¹² In order that they may [indeed] look and look but not see and perceive, and may hear and hear but not grasp and comprehend, ^[d]lest haply they should turn again, and it [^[e]their willful rejection of the truth] should be forgiven them.^(A)

¹³ And He said to them, Do you not discern and understand this parable? How then is it possible for you to discern and understand all the parables?

¹⁴ The sower sows the Word.

¹⁵ The ones along the path are those who have the Word sown [in their hearts], but when they hear, Satan comes at once and [by force] takes away the message which is sown in them.

¹⁶ And in the same way the ones sown upon stony ground are those who, when they hear the Word, at once receive and accept and welcome it with joy;

¹⁷ And they have no real root in themselves, and so they endure for a little while; then when trouble or persecution arises on account of the Word, they immediately are offended (become displeased, indignant, resentful) and they stumble and fall away.

¹⁸ And the ones sown among the thorns are others who hear the Word;

¹⁹ Then the cares and anxieties of the world and distractions of the age, and the pleasure and delight and false glamour and deceitfulness of riches, and the craving and passionate desire for other things creep in and choke and suffocate the Word, and it becomes fruitless.

²⁰ And those sown on the good (well-adapted) soil are the ones who hear the Word and receive and accept and welcome it and bear fruit—some thirty times as much as was sown, some sixty times as much, and some [even] a hundred times as much.

²⁸ Peter started to say to Him, Behold, we have ^[a]yielded up and abandoned everything [once and for all and ^[b]joined You as Your disciples, siding with Your party] and accompanied You [^[c]walking the same road that You walk].

²⁹ Jesus said, Truly I tell you, there is no one who has given up and left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for My sake and for the Gospel’s

³⁰ Who will not receive a hundred times as much now in this time—houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions—and in the age to come, eternal life.

³¹ But many [who are now] first will be last [then], and many [who are now] last will be first [then].