10 Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God,v and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would ask him, and he would give you living water.”w

11 “Sir,”x said the woman, “you don’t even have a bucket, and the well is deep. So where do you get this ‘living water’? 12 You aren’t greater than our father Jacob,y are you? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and livestock.”

13 Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. 14 But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again.z In fact, the water I will give him will become a wellJ,aa of water springing up in him for eternal life.”ab

15 “Sir,” the woman said to him, “give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and come here to draw water.”

16 “Go call your husband,” he told her, “and come back here.”

17 “I don’t have a husband,” she answered.

“You have correctly said, ‘I don’t have a husband,’ ” Jesus said. 18 “For you’ve had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

19 “Sir,” the woman replied, “I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain,ac but you Jews say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.”ad

21 Jesus told her, “Believe me, woman, an hour 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, because salvation is from the Jews.ae 23 But an hour is coming, and is now here,af when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth.* Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit,ag and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in truth.”ah

25 The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiahai is coming” (who is called Christaj). “When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

26 Jesus told her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.”ak