Matthew 13:19-23

13:19 When anyone hears the word about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one¹ comes and snatches what was sown in his heart;² this is the seed sown along the path. 13:20 The³ seed sown on rocky ground⁴ is the person who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy. 13:21 But he has no root in himself and does not endure;⁵ when⁶ trouble or persecution comes because of the word, immediately he falls away. 13:22 The⁷ seed sown among thorns is the person who hears the word, but worldly cares and the seductiveness of wealth⁸ choke the word,⁹ so it produces nothing. 13:23 But as for the seed sown on good soil, this is the person who hears the word and understands. He bears fruit, yielding a hundred, sixty, or thirty times what was sown.”¹⁰

Matthew 13:38-43

13:38 The field is the world and the good seed are the people¹¹ of the kingdom. The weeds are the people¹² of the evil one, 13:39 and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. 13:40 As¹³ the weeds are collected and burned with fire, so it will be at the end of the age. 13:41 The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather from his kingdom everything that causes sin as well as all lawbreakers.¹⁴ 13:42 They will throw them into the fiery furnace,¹⁵ where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 13:43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.¹⁶ The one who has ears had better listen!¹⁷

Matthew 13:47-48

13:47 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was cast into the sea that caught all kinds of fish. 13:48 When it was full, they pulled it ashore, sat down, and put the good fish into containers and threw the bad away.

¹sn Interestingly, the synoptic parallels each use a different word for Satan here: Mark 4:15 has “Satan,” while Luke 8:12 has “the devil.” This illustrates the fluidity of the gospel tradition in often using synonyms at the same point of the parallel tradition.

²sn The word of Jesus has the potential to save if it germinates in a person’s heart, something the devil is very much against.

³tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

⁴tn Grk “The one sown on rocky ground, this is the one.” The next two statements like this one have this same syntactical structure.

⁵tn Grk “is temporary.”

⁶tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

⁷tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

⁸tn Grk “the deceitfulness of riches.” Cf. BDAG 99 s.v. ἀπάτη 1, “the seduction which comes from wealth.”

⁹sn That is, their concern for spiritual things is crowded out by material things.

¹⁰tn The Greek is difficult to translate because it switches from a generic “he” to three people within this generic class (thus, something like: “Who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one instance a hundred times, in another, sixty times, in another, thirty times”).

¹¹tn Grk “the sons of the kingdom.” This idiom refers to people who should properly be, or were traditionally regarded as, a part of God’s kingdom. L&N 11.13 translates the phrase: “people of God’s kingdom, God’s people.”

¹²tn Grk “the sons of the evil one.” See the preceding note on the phrase “people of the kingdom” earlier in this verse, which is the opposite of this phrase. See also L&N 9.4; 11.13; 11.14.

¹³tn Grk “Therefore as.” Here οὖν (oun) has not been translated.

¹⁴tn Grk “the ones who practice lawlessness.”

¹⁵sn A quotation from Dan 3:6.

¹⁶sn An allusion to Dan 12:3.

¹⁷tn The translation “had better listen!” captures the force of the third person imperative more effectively than the traditional “let him hear,” which sounds more like a permissive than an imperative to the modern English reader. This was Jesus’ common expression to listen and heed carefully (cf. Matt 11:15, 13:9; Mark 4:9, 23; Luke 8:8, 14:35).