First Reading: Isaiah 55: 10 – 13

¹⁰ “For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, And do not return there, But water the earth, And make it bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower And bread to the eater,

¹¹ So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me ^[a]void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

¹² “For you shall go out with joy, And be led out with peace; The mountains and the hills Shall break forth into singing before you, And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

¹³ Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress tree, And instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree; And it shall be to the Lord for a name, For an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”

Second Reading: Romans 8: 1- 11

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who^[a] do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

² For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.

³ For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh,

⁴ that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

⁵ For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.

⁶ For to be ^[b]carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

⁷ Because the ^[c]carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.

⁸ So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

⁹ But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.

¹⁰ And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

¹¹ But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies ^[d]through His Spirit who dwells in you.

Gospel Reading: Mathew 13: 1- 9

13 On the same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea.

² And great multitudes were gathered together to Him, so that He got into a boat and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore.

³ Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: “Behold, a sower went out to sow.

⁴ And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them.

⁵ Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth.

⁶ But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away.

⁷ And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them.

⁸ But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.

⁹ He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”