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Then He proceeded to teach them many lessons in figurative language; and in His teaching He said,
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"Listen: the sower goes out to sow.
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As he sows, some of the seed falls by the way-side, and the birds come and peck it up.
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Some falls on the rocky ground where it finds but little earth, and it shoots up quickly because it has no depth of soil;
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but when the sun is risen, it is scorched, and through having no root it withers away.
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Some, again, falls among the thorns; and the thorns spring up and stifle it, so that it yields no crop.
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But some of the seed falls into good ground, and gives a return: it comes up and increases, and yields thirty, sixty, or a hundred-fold."
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"Listen," He added, "every one who has ears to listen with!"
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When He was alone, the Twelve and the others who were about Him requested Him to explain His figurative language.
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"To you," He replied, "has been entrusted the secret truth concerning the Kingdom of God; but to those others outside your number all this is spoken in figurative language;
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that "`They may look and look but not see, and listen and listen but not understand, lest perchance they should return and be pardoned.'"