Mark 4:2-10,13-20,

2He taught them many things in parables, and in his teaching said to them: 3“Listen! A sower went out to sow. 4And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. 5Other seed fell on rocky ground where it did not have much soil. It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep. 6When the sun came up it was scorched, and because it did not have sufficient root, it withered. 7Other seed fell among the thorns, and they grew up and choked it, and it did not produce grain. 8But other seed fell on good soil and produced grain, sprouting and growing; some yielded thirty times as much, some sixty, and some a hundred times.” 9And he said, “Whoever has ears to hear had better listen!”

10When he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables.

13Jesus then told them:

If you don’t understand this story, you won’t understand any others. 14What the farmer is spreading is really the message about the kingdom. 15The seeds that fell along the road are the people who hear the message. But Satan soon comes and snatches it away from them. 16The seeds that fell on rocky ground are the people who gladly hear the message and accept it at once. 17But they don’t have roots, and they don’t last very long. As soon as life gets hard or the message gets them in trouble, they give up.

18The seeds that fell among the thornbushes are also people who hear the message. 19But they start worrying about the needs of this life. They are fooled by the desire to get rich and to have all kinds of other things. So the message gets choked out, and they never produce anything. 20The seeds that fell on good ground are the people who hear and welcome the message. They produce 30 or 60 or even 100 times as much as was planted.