Mark 4:13-20

The Voice

¹³ Do you mean to say that you didn’t understand My parable of the sower? That was the key parable. If you don’t see what I was trying to teach there, how will you be able to understand any of the others?

¹⁴ The seed the farmer is sowing is the good news, God’s word. ¹⁵ Some people are the seed thrown onto the path, and the tempter snaps up the word before it can even take root. ¹⁶ Others are the seed thrown among the rocks. Those people hear the word and receive it immediately with joy and enthusiasm; ¹⁷ but without deep roots, doubt, trouble, or persecution instantly withers their faith. ¹⁸ Still others are the seed tossed among weeds and brambles. The word has reached them, ¹⁹ but the things of this life—the worries, the drive for more and more, the desire for other things—those things cluster around close and choke the life of God out of them until they cannot produce. ²⁰ But those last seeds—those sown into good soil? Those people hear the word, accept it, meditate on it, act on it, and bear fruit—a crop 30, 60, or 100 times larger than the farmer dropped to earth.