Luke 8:4–13

The Parable of the Sower

^4tAnd when a great crowd was gathering and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable, ^5u“A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. ⁶And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, ^vit withered away, because it had no moisture. ⁷And some fell among ^wthorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. ⁸And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded ^xa hundredfold.” As he said these things, he called out, ^y“He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

The Purpose of the Parables

⁹And when his disciples asked him what this parable meant, ¹⁰he said, ^z“To you it has been given to know ^athe secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so ^bthat ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’ ^11cNow the parable is this: The seed is ^dthe word of God. ¹²The ones along the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not ^ebelieve and be saved. ¹³And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it ^fwith joy. But these have no root; they ^gbelieve for a while, and in time of testing ^hfall away.