Luke 8:2-12

2 and also ¹some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: ²Mary, called Magdalene, ³from whom seven demons had gone out,

3 and ⁴Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod's household manager, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them^[a] out of their means.

The Parable of the Sower

4 ⁵And when a great crowd was gathering and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable:

5 ⁶"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.

6 And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, ⁷it withered away, because it had no moisture.

7 And some fell among ⁸thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it.

8 And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded ⁹a hundredfold." As he said these things, he called out, ¹⁰"He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

The Purpose of the Parables

9 And when his disciples asked him what this parable meant,

10 he said, ¹¹"To you it has been given to know ¹²the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so ¹³that 'seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.'

11 ¹⁴Now the parable is this: The seed is ¹⁵the word of God.

12 The 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 ¹⁶believe and be saved.