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32 But once it is sown, it springs up and becomes the greatest of all plants, and it puts forth large branches so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

33 The Usefulness of Parables.[a] With many such parables as these he spoke the word to them so far as they were able to comprehend it. 34 He never spoke to them except in parables, but he explained everything to his disciples when they were by themselves.

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Footnotes

  1. Mark 4:33 These words mitigate and partly explain the warning in v. 12. Jesus with his parables adapted himself to the imaginative eastern mentality, without running afoul of the susceptibility of that people who were still stubbornly attached to the idea of a triumphal Messiah. He offered the possibility of reflections and further elucidations.