"Listen then to this parable of the farmer [who sowed seed].

[Then] Jesus told them another parable, saying, "The kingdom of heaven is similar to a person who sowed seed in his field,

And some of the seed he sowed [i.e., scattering it by hand] landed along the side of the road and birds came and ate it.

Then the one who was given [only] one talent came and reported, 'Master, I knew you were a difficult man who reaped where you had not sown, and gathered a harvest where you had not scattered seed,

But his master said to him, 'You wicked, lazy servant. [Since] you knew that I reaped where I had not sown and gathered where I had not scattered seed,

This seed is indeed [one of] the smallest of all seeds, but when it is [fully] grown, it is larger than [other] plants, and [even] becomes a tree, so that the birds of the sky come and roost on its branches."