Mark / Parable of the Sower and Its Interpretation

Parable of the Sower and Its Interpretation

Mark 4:1-20

Chapter 4

¹ Once again he began to teach by the sea. A very large crowd gathered around him, so that he got into a boat and sat there in the sea, while the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land. ² And he was teaching them in many parables, and he was saying to them in his teaching: ³ Listen. Look, the sower went out to sow his seed. ⁴ And as he was sowing, some seed fell beside the path, and the birds came and devoured it. ⁵ And another fell on the rocky ground where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up because it did not have depth of soil. ⁶ And when the sun rose, it was scorched, and because it had no root, it withered. ⁷ And another fell into the thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it did not give fruit. ⁸ Still other seed fell into good soil. It came up and grew and produced a crop, some thirty, some sixty, and some a hundred times what was sown. ⁹ Then he said, "Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear." ¹⁰ And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables. ¹¹ And he said to them, "To you the mystery has been given of the kingdom of God; but to those outside, all things happen in parables." ¹² so that seeing they may see but not perceive, and hearing they may hear but not understand, lest they turn back and it be forgiven them. ¹³ He said to them, "Don't you understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables?" ¹⁴ The one sowing the word sows. ¹⁵ But these are the ones along the path where the word is sown. When they hear it, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. ¹⁶ And these are likewise the ones sown on rocky ground, who, whenever they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy. ¹⁷ and they have no root in themselves but are temporary. Then, when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they fall away. ¹⁸ And others are the ones sown among the thorns; they are the ones who hear the word, ¹⁹ and the anxieties of the age and the deception of wealth and the desires concerning the other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. ²⁰ And these are the ones sown on the good soil: those who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit—in thirtyfold and sixtyfold and hundredfold.