The Parable of the Sower

13 On that day Jesus went out of the house and[a] was sitting by the sea.[b] And large crowds gathered close around him, so that he got into a boat to sit down, and all the crowd was standing on the shore. And he spoke many things to them in parables, saying, “Behold, the sower went out to sow, and while he was sowing, some seed[c] fell on the side of the path, and the birds came and[d] devoured it. And other seed fell on the rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and it sprang up at once because it did not have any depth of soil. But when[e] the sun rose it was scorched, and because it did not have enough root, it withered. And other seed fell among the thorn plants, and the thorn plants came up and choked it. But other seed fell on the good soil and produced grain,[f] this one a hundred times as much and this one sixty and this one thirty. The one who has ears, let him hear!”

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Footnotes

  1. Matthew 13:1 Here “and” is supplied because the previous participle (“went out”) has been translated as a finite verb
  2. Matthew 13:1 That is, the Sea of Galilee
  3. Matthew 13:4 Literally “some of which”
  4. Matthew 13:4 Here “and” is supplied because the previous participle (“came”) has been translated as a finite verb
  5. Matthew 13:6 Here “when” is supplied as a component of the temporal genitive absolute participle (“rose”)
  6. Matthew 13:8 Literally “fruit,” describing here the grain harvested from the healthy plants; in contemporary English this would more naturally be expressed by terms like “grain” or “crop”