The Parable of the Wheat and the Tares
An enemy sows weeds among the wheat — and the harvest, not the servants, will sort them.
A man sows good wheat, but his enemy sows tares (weeds) among it while he sleeps. The servants want to pull the weeds; the owner says wait, lest the wheat be uprooted too — let both grow until the harvest, when the reapers will separate them.
The parable
He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.
Let both grow together until the harvest — the patient owner overrules the eager servants.
What it means
The field is the world, and in it good and evil grow side by side. The tares — probably darnel, a weed that looks like wheat until the ears form — cannot be safely pulled without damaging the wheat whose roots are entangled with them. So the owner counsels patience: judgment will come, but at the right time, and by the right hand.
The parable restrains our impulse to purge and sort now. We cannot always tell wheat from weed, and our attempts to root out evil often harm the good. Final judgment belongs to God, at the harvest, carried out by the angels — not to us in the growing season.
It is also a comfort. The presence of evil among the good does not mean God has lost control or abandoned the field. He knows the tares are there, he permits them to grow for now, and he guarantees a harvest in which everything is finally set right: the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.