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Again Jesus began to teach beside Lake Galilee. The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it. The boat was out in the water, and the crowd stood on the shore at the water's edge.
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He used parables to teach them many things, saying to them:
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"Listen! Once there was a man who went out to sow grain.
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As he scattered the seed in the field, some of it fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up.
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Some of it fell on rocky ground, where there was little soil. The seeds soon sprouted, because the soil wasn't deep.
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Then, when the sun came up, it burned the young plants; and because the roots had not grown deep enough, the plants soon dried up.
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Some of the seed fell among thorn bushes, which grew up and choked the plants, and they didn't bear grain.
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But some seeds fell in good soil, and the plants sprouted, grew, and bore grain: some had thirty grains, others sixty, and others one hundred."
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And Jesus concluded, "Listen, then, if you have ears!"