"It is with the kingdom of God," he continued, "as if a man should have sown seed in the earth;

And like the sowing upon 'stony ground' are those who, whenever they hear the Word, at once receive it with joy,

It is like a mustard-seed, which, when sown in the soil, is the smallest seed in the world;

and as he sowed, it happened that some seed fell on the road, and birds came and picked it up;

some other seed fell on stony soil, where it had not much earth; and it sprang up quickly because it had no depth of soil,

Other seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked it, so that it yielded no crop.

But some seed fell into good soil and yielded a crop that sprang up and increased, yielding thirty, sixty, or a hundredfold.

night and day he sleeps and wakes while the seed is sprouting and growing tall, he knows not how.