Part 5

003:035 "Here are my mother and my brothers. For wherever there is one who has been obedient to God, there is my brother-- my sister--and my mother."

004:001 Once more He began to teach by the side of the Lake, and a vast multitude of people came together to listen to Him. He therefore went on board the boat and sat there, a little way from the land; and all the people were on the shore close to the water.

004:002 Then He proceeded to teach them many lessons in figurative language; and in His teaching He said,

004:003 "Listen: the sower goes out to sow.

004:004 As he sows, some of the seed falls by the way-side, and the birds come and peck it up.

004:005 Some falls on the rocky ground where it finds but little earth, and it shoots up quickly because it has no depth of soil;

004:006 but when the sun is risen, it is scorched, and through having no root it withers away.

004:007 Some, again, falls among the thorns; and the thorns spring up and stifle it, so that it yields no crop.

004:008 But some of the seed falls into good ground, and gives a return: it comes up and increases, and yields thirty, sixty, or a hundred-fold."

004:009 "Listen," He added, "every one who has ears to listen with!"

004:010 When He was alone, the Twelve and the others who were about Him requested Him to explain His figurative language.

004:011 "To you," He replied, "has been entrusted the secret truth concerning the Kingdom of God; but to those others outside your number all this is spoken in figurative language;

004:012 that "'They may look and look but not see, and listen and listen but not understand, lest perchance they should return and be pardoned.'"

004:013 "Do you all miss the meaning of this parable?" He added; "how then will you understand the rest of my parables?"

004:014 "What the sower sows is the Message.

004:015 Those who receive the seed by the way-side are those in whom the Message is sown, but, when they have heard it, Satan comes at once and carries away the Message sown in them.

004:016 In the same way those who receive the seed on the rocky places are those who, when they have heard the Message, at once accept it joyfully,

004:017 but they have no root within them. They last for a time; then, when suffering or persecution comes because of the Message, they are immediately overthrown.

004:018 Others there are who receive the seed among the thorns: these are they who have heard the Message,

004:019 but worldly cares and the deceitfulness of wealth and the excessive pursuit of other objects come in and stifle the Message, and it becomes unfruitful.

004:020 Those, on the other hand, who have received the seed on the good ground, are all who hear the Message and welcome it, and yield a return of thirty, sixty, or a hundred fold."

004:021 He went on to say, "Is the lamp brought in in order to be put under the bushel or under the bed? Is it not rather in order that it may be placed on the lampstand?

004:022 Why, there is nothing hidden except with a view to its being ultimately disclosed, nor has anything been made a secret but that it may at last come to light.

004:023 Listen, every one who has ears to listen with!"

004:024 He also said to them, "Take care what you hear. With what measure you measure, it will be measured to you, and that with interest.

004:025 For those who have will have more given them; and from those who have not, even what they have will be taken away."

004:026 Another saying of His was this: "The Kingdom of God is as if a man scattered seed over the ground:

004:027 he spends days and nights, now awake, now asleep, while the seed sprouts and grows tall, he knows not how.