Evening Prayer

Mark 4:1-201 Again he began to teach them by the lakeside, but such a huge crowd gathered round him that he got into a boat on the water and sat there. The whole crowd were at the lakeside on land.2 He taught them many things in parables, and in the course of his teaching he said to them,3 'Listen! Imagine a sower going out to sow.4 Now it happened that, as he sowed, some of the seed fell on the edge of the path, and the birds came and ate it up.5 Some seed fell on rocky ground where it found little soil and at once sprang up, because there was no depth of earth;6 and when the sun came up it was scorched and, not having any roots, it withered away.7 Some seed fell into thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it produced no crop.8 And some seeds fell into rich soil, grew tall and strong, and produced a good crop; the yield was thirty, sixty, even a hundredfold.'9 And he said, 'Anyone who has ears for listening should listen!'10 When he was alone, the Twelve, together with the others who formed his company, asked what the parables meant.11 He told them, 'To you is granted the secret of the kingdom of God, but to those who are outside everything comes in parables,12 so that they may look and look, but never perceive; listen and listen, but never understand; to avoid changing their ways and being healed.'13 He said to them, 'Do you not understand this parable? Then how will you understand any of the parables?14 What the sower is sowing is the word.15 Those on the edge of the path where the word is sown are people who have no sooner heard it than Satan at once comes and carries away the word that was sown in them.16 Similarly, those who are sown on patches of rock are people who, when first they hear the word, welcome it at once with joy.17 But they have no root deep down and do not last; should some trial come, or some persecution on account of the word, at once they fall away.18 Then there are others who are sown in thorns. These have heard the word,19 but the worries of the world, the lure of riches and all the other passions come in to choke the word, and so it produces nothing.20 And there are those who have been sown in rich soil; they hear the word and accept it and yield a harvest, thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.'