Matthew 13:10-17 - The Reason For The Parables

¹⁰ His disciples came up and said to him, "Why do you speak to them in figures?"

¹¹ He answered, "You are permitted to know the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven, but they are not. ¹² For people who have will have more given to them, and will be plentifully supplied, and from people who have nothing even what they have will be taken away. ¹³ This is why I speak to them in figures, because though they look they do not see, and though they listen they do not hear or understand. ¹⁴ They are a fulfilment of Isaiah's prophecy, " 'You will listen and listen, and never understand, And you will look and look, and never see! ¹⁵ For this nation's mind has grown dull, And they hear faintly with their ears, And they have shut their eyes, So as never to see with their eyes, And hear with their ears, And understand with their minds, and turn back, And let me cure them!'

¹⁶ But blessed are your eyes, for they do see, and your ears, for they do hear. ¹⁷ For I tell you, many prophets and upright men have longed to see what you see, and could not see it, and to hear what you hear, and could not hear it.

¹⁰ When he was by himself, those who stayed about him with the Twelve asked him about the figures he had used. ¹¹ And he said to them, "To you has been intrusted the secret of the reign of God, but to those outsiders, everything is offered in figures, ¹² so that " 'They may look and look and yet not see, And listen and listen and yet not understand, Lest possibly they should turn and be forgiven.' ",

⁹ His disciples asked him what this figure meant. ¹⁰ And he said, "You are permitted to know the secrets of the Kingdom of God, but they are given to others in the form of figures, so that they may look and yet not see, and hear and yet not understand.