Jesus said that the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. The statement appears in Matthew 9:37, as Jesus looked at crowds who were distressed and spiritually directionless.
The harvest is a metaphor for people ready to hear and respond to the message of the Gospel. The “laborers” are those who carry out that work, including Jesus’ disciples and later Christian missionaries. In the next verse, Jesus tells his disciples to ask the Lord of the harvest to send more workers.
The wording varies slightly among English Bible translations. The King James Version says “the labourers are few,” while the New International Version uses “the workers are few.” Both translate the same central idea, so “few” is the canonical answer.
A common mix-up is to answer “many,” because the first half of the sentence says the harvest is plentiful. Jesus contrasts the abundance of the opportunity with the shortage of people willing to serve. A similar passage appears in Luke 10:2, where the same harvest-and-workers image is used before the sending of the seventy-two disciples.