[1] The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John, [2] although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. [3] When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
[4] Now he had to go through Samaria. [5] So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. [6] Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
[7] When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” [8] (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
[9] The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. [a])
[10] Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
[11] “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? [12] Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?”
[13] Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, [14] but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
[15] The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
[16] He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
[17] “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. [18] The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
[19] “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. [20] Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
[21] Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. [22] You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. [23] Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. [24] God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
[25] The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
[26] Then Jesus declared, “I who speak to you am he.”
[27] Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”
[28] Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, [29] “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ [b]?” [30] They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
[31] Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”
[32] But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
[33] Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”
[34] “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. [35] Do you not say, ‘Four months more and then the harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. [36] Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. [37] Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. [38] I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”
[39] Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” [40] So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. [41] And because of his words many more became believers.
[42] They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”
Footnotes:
[a] John 4:9 Or do not use dishes Samaritans have used
[b] John 4:29 Or Messiah