Mark 4:24-39

²⁴“Take care what you listen to,” said Jesus. “The standard you use will be used for you, and more will be added for you.

²⁵For, to those who have, more will be given; while, from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.”

²⁶Jesus also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like — like a man who has scattered seed on the ground,

²⁷and then sleeps by night and rises by day, while the seed is shooting up and growing — he knows not how.

²⁸The ground bears the crop of itself — first the blade, then the ear, and then the full grain in the ear;

²⁹but, as soon as the crop is ready, immediately he puts in the sickle because harvest has come.”

³⁰Jesus also said, “To what can we liken the kingdom of God?

³¹By what can we illustrate it? Perhaps by the growth of a mustard seed. This seed, when sown in the ground, though it is smaller than all other seeds,

³²yet, when sown, shoots up, and becomes larger than any other herb, and puts out great branches, so that even the wild birds can roost in its shelter.”

³³With many such parables Jesus used to speak to the people of his message, as far as they were able to receive it;

³⁴and to them he never used to speak except in parables; but in private to his own disciples he explained everything.

³⁵In the evening of the same day, Jesus said to them, “Let us go across.”

³⁶So, leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them, just as he was, in the boat; and there were other boats with him.

³⁷A violent squall came on, and the waves kept dashing into the boat, so that the boat was actually filling.

³⁸Jesus was in the stern asleep on the cushion; and the disciples roused him and cried, “Teacher! Is it nothing to you that we are lost?”

³⁹Jesus rose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Hush! Be still!” Then the wind dropped, and a great calm followed.