Mark 4:12

You know, God got one of his men to write these words, and they are in God’s book. He wrote, ‘People will look with their eyes at what I do, but they will not try to understand what it means. They will hear my words with their ears, but they will not try to understand them properly. If they do understand me properly, then they will turn around and come back to God, and then God will not blame them for the bad things they did. But they don’t want to know about that.’ And those things are happening now.”

Plain English Version

In The King James Version

That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.

In Context

11Jesus said, “You mob follow me, so God wants you to know what my stories are all about, so I will tell you what they mean. Those stories are about how God gets people into his family. But other people don’t follow me, so they only get the picture stories. I will not tell them what they mean.

13Jesus kept on talking. He said, “Why can’t you understand this picture story? If you can’t understand this easy story, you will not understand the other stories that I’m going to tell you.

Read all of Mark 4

Cross References

Acts 3:19So listen. You mob have to change the way you live, and you have to turn back to God, so that he will not blame you or do payback to you for the bad things you did.

Matthew Henry on Mark 4:2-21

The Parable of the Sower. 1 And he began again to teach by the sea side: and there was gathered unto him a great multitude, so that he entered into a ship, and sat in the sea; and the whole multitude was by the sea on the land. 2 And he taught them many things by parables, and said unto them in his doctrine, 3 Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow: 4 And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up. 5 And some fell on stony ground, where it had… Read the whole commentary →

This Verse In Other Editions

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