Matthew 6:26

6:26 Look at the birds in the sky: ¹  They do not sow, or reap, or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds ²  them. Aren’t you more valuable ³  than they are?

Matthew 13:22-23

13:22 The ⁴  seed sown among thorns is the person who hears the word, but worldly cares and the seductiveness of wealth ⁵  choke the word, ⁶  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.” ⁷ 

Matthew 13:31

The Parable of the Mustard Seed

13:31 He gave ⁸  them another parable: ⁹  “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed ¹⁰  that a man took and sowed in his field.

Matthew 25:24

25:24 Then the one who had received the one talent came and said, ‘Sir, I knew that you were a hard man, harvesting where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed,

Matthew 25:26

25:26 But his master answered, ¹¹  ‘Evil and lazy slave! So you knew that I harvest where I didn’t sow and gather where I didn’t scatter?

¹ tn Grk “the birds of the sky” or “the birds of the heaven”; the Greek word οὐρανός (ouranos) may be translated either “sky” or “heaven,” depending on the context. The idiomatic expression “birds of the sky” refers to wild birds as opposed to domesticated fowl (cf. BDAG 809 s.v. πετεινόν).

² tn Or “God gives them food to eat.” L&N 23.6 has both “to provide food for” and “to give food to someone to eat.”

³ tn Grk “of more value.”

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

⁵ tn Grk “the deceitfulness of riches.” Cf. BDAG 99 s.v. ἀπάτη 1, “the seduction which comes from wealth.”

⁶ 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”).

¹⁰ tn Grk “put before.”

¹¹ tn Grk “He set before them another parable, saying.” The participle λέγων (legwn) is redundant and has not been translated.

¹² sn The mustard seed was noted for its tiny size.

¹³ tn Grk “But answering, his master said to him.” This is somewhat redundant and has been simplified in the translation.