Gospel according to Matthew

He stretched out his hand towards his disciples, and said, "Behold, my mother and my brothers!

For whoever does the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother."

On that day Jesus went out of the house, and sat by the seaside.

Great multitudes gathered to him, so that he entered into a boat, and sat, and all the multitude stood on the beach.

He spoke to them many things in parables, saying, "Behold, a farmer went out to sow.

As he sowed, some seeds fell by the roadside, and the birds came and devoured them.

Others fell on rocky ground, where they didn't have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, because they had no depth of earth.

When the sun had risen, they were scorched. Because they had no root, they withered away.

Others fell among thorns. The thorns grew up and choked them:

and others fell on good soil, and yielded fruit: some one hundred times as much, some sixty, and some thirty.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

The disciples came, and said to him, "Why do you speak to them in parables?"

He answered them, "To you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but it is not given to them.

For whoever has, to him will be given, and he will have abundance, but whoever doesn't have, from him will be taken away even that which he has.

Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they don't see, and hearing, they don't hear, neither do they understand.

In them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says, 'By hearing you will hear, And will in no way understand; Seeing you will see, And will in no way perceive:

For this people's heart has grown callous, Their ears are dull of hearing, They have closed their eyes; Or else perhaps they might perceive with their eyes, Hear with their ears, Understand with their heart, And should turn again; And I would heal them.'

"But blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear.

For most assuredly I tell you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see the things which you see, and didn't see them; and to hear the things which you hear, and didn't hear them.

"Hear, then, the parable of the farmer.