Matthew 13:20-23

13:20 The ¹  seed sown on rocky ground ²  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; ³  when ⁴  trouble or persecution comes because of the word, immediately he falls away. 13:22 The ⁵  seed sown among thorns is the person who hears the word, but worldly cares and the seductiveness of wealth ⁶  choke the word, ⁷  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.” ⁸ 

¹ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

² tn Grk “The one sown on rocky ground, this is the one.” The next two statements like this one have this same syntactical structure.

³ tn Grk “is temporary.”

⁴ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

⁵ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

⁶ tn Grk “the deceitfulness of riches.” Cf. BDAG 99 s.v. ἀπάτη 1, “the seduction which comes from wealth.”

⁷ sn That is, their concern for spiritual things is crowded out by material things.

⁷ tn 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”).