Mark 4:17-35

¹⁷and have not root in themselves, but are temporary; afterward tribulation or persecution having come because of the word, immediately they are stumbled.

¹⁸'And these are they who toward the thorns are sown: these are they who are hearing the word,

¹⁹and the anxieties of this age, and the deceitfulness of the riches, and the desires concerning the other things, entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.

²⁰'And these are they who on the good ground have been sown: who do hear the word, and receive, and do bear fruit, one thirty-fold, and one sixty, and one an hundred.'

²¹And he said to them, 'Doth the lamp come that under the measure it may be put, or under the couch — not that it may be put on the lamp-stand?

²²for there is not anything hid that may not be manifested, nor was anything kept hid but that it may come to light.

²³If any hath ears to hear — let him hear.'

²⁴And he said to them, 'Take heed what ye hear; in what measure ye measure, it shall be measured to you; and to you who hear it shall be added;

²⁵for whoever may have, there shall be given to him, and whoever hath not, also that which he hath shall be taken from him.'

²⁶And he said, 'Thus is the reign of God: as if a man may cast the seed on the earth,

²⁷and may sleep, and may rise night and day, and the seed spring up and grow, he hath not known how;

²⁸for of itself doth the earth bear fruit, first a blade, afterwards an ear, afterwards full corn in the ear;

²⁹and whenever the fruit may yield itself, immediately he doth send forth the sickle, because the harvest hath come.'

³⁰And he said, 'To what may we liken the reign of God, or in what simile may we compare it?

³¹As a grain of mustard, which, whenever it may be sown on the earth, is less than any of the seeds that are on the earth;

³²and whenever it may be sown, it cometh up, and doth become greater than any of the herbs, and doth make great branches, so that under its shade the fowls of the heaven are able to rest.'

³³And with many such similes he was speaking to them the word, as they were able to hear,

³⁴and without a simile he was not speaking to them, and by themselves, to his disciples he was expounding all.

³⁵And he saith to them on that day, evening having come, 'We may pass over to the other side;'