Bible Verses About Parables

`I am the vine, ye the branches; he who is remaining in me, and I in him, this one doth bear much fruit, because apart from me ye are not able to do anything;

and he became very hungry, and wished to eat; and they making ready, there fell upon him a trance,

and he doth behold the heaven opened, and descending unto him a certain vessel, as a great sheet, bound at the four corners, and let down upon the earth,

in which were all the four-footed beasts of the earth, and the wild beasts, and the creeping things, and the fowls of the heaven,

and there came a voice unto him: `Having risen, Peter, slay and eat.'

And Peter said, `Not so, Lord; because at no time did I eat anything common or unclean;'

and there is a voice again a second time unto him: `What God did cleanse, thou, declare not thou common;'

and this was done thrice, and again was the vessel received up to the heaven.

for it hath been written, that Abraham had two sons, one by the maid-servant, and one by the free-woman,

but he who is of the maid-servant, according to flesh hath been, and he who is of the free-woman, through the promise;

which things are allegorized, for these are the two covenants: one, indeed, from mount Sinai, to servitude bringing forth, which is Hagar;

for this Hagar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and doth correspond to the Jerusalem that now is , and is in servitude with her children,

and the Jerusalem above is the free-woman, which is mother of us all,

for it hath been written, `Rejoice, O barren, who art not bearing; break forth and cry, thou who art not travailing, because many are the children of the desolate--more than of her having the husband.'

And we, brethren, as Isaac, are children of promise,

but as then he who was born according to the flesh did persecute him according to the spirit, so also now;

but what saith the Writing? `Cast forth the maid-servant and her son, for the son of the maid-servant may not be heir with the son of the free-woman;'

then, brethren, we are not a maid-servant's children, but the free-woman's.

thou, therefore, suffer evil as a good soldier of Jesus Christ;

no one serving as a soldier did entangle himself with the affairs of life, that him who did enlist him he may please;

and if also any one may strive, he is not crowned, except he may strive lawfully;

the labouring husbandman it behoveth first of the fruits to partake;

And in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth, and some to honour, and some to dishonour:

if, then, any one may cleanse himself from these, he shall be a vessel to honour, sanctified and profitable to the master--to every good work having been prepared,

because, if any one is a hearer of the word and not a doer, this one hath been like to a man viewing his natural face in a mirror,