The Parable of the Sower

By the sea, Jesus gets into a boat and teaches the crowd in parables: “Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow.” Some of the seed falls by the wayside: the birds devour it. Some falls on stony ground: it springs up at once, but scorched by the sun, it withers for lack of root. Some falls among thorns, which choke it. And some finally falls on good ground and yields “some thirty, and some sixty, and some an hundred.” Privately, Jesus explains to the twelve: “The sower soweth the word.” The wayside is those from whom Satan takes away the word; the stony ground is those who have no root when persecution comes; the thorns are the cares, the riches, and the desires of other things; the good ground is those who hear the word, receive it, and bear fruit.