Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.

And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, which says: 'Hearing you shall hear and by no means understand, and seeing you shall see and by no means perceive.

"These things I have spoken to you in figures of speech; but the time is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech, but I will tell you plainly about the Father.

And also some of the Epicurean and of the Stoic philosophers were conversing with him. And some were saying, "What does this seed-picker wish to say?" But others [said], "He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign deities," because he was preaching the good news of Jesus and the resurrection.