John 4:7–42

⁷A woman of Samaria came to draw water.^s

“Give me a drink,” Jesus said to her, ⁸because his disciples had gone into town to buy food.

⁹“How is it that you, a Jew,^t ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan^u woman?” she asked him. For Jews do not associate with^I Samaritans.^J

¹⁰Jesus 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’? ¹²You 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.”

¹³Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. ¹⁴But 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 well^Aaa 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. ²⁰Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain,^ac but you Jews say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.”^ad

²¹Jesus told her, “Believe me, woman, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²²You 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. ²⁴God is spirit,^ag and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in truth.”^ah

²⁵The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah^ai is coming” (who is called Christ^aj). “When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

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

THE RIPENED HARVEST

²⁷Just then his disciples arrived, and they were amazed that he was talking with a woman. Yet no one said, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”

²⁸Then the woman left her water jar, went into town, and told the people, ²⁹“Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”^{al 30}They left the town and made their way to him.^am

³¹In the meantime the disciples kept urging him, “Rabbi,^an eat something.”

³²But he said, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.”

³³The disciples said to one another, “Could someone have brought him something to eat?”

³⁴“My food is to do the will of him^a who sent me^b and to finish his work,”^c Jesus told them. ³⁵“Don’t you say, ‘There are still four more months, and then comes the harvest’? Listen to what I’m telling you: Open^C your eyes and look at the fields, because they are ready^D for harvest. ³⁶The reaper is already receiving pay and gathering fruit for eternal life,^d so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together. ³⁷For in this case the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’^{e 38}I sent you to reap what you didn’t labor for; others have labored, and you have benefited from^A their labor.”

THE SAVIOR OF THE WORLD

³⁹Now many Samaritans^f from that town believed in him because of what the woman said^B when she testified,^g “He told me everything I ever did.” ⁴⁰So when the Samaritans came to him,^h they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. ⁴¹Many more believed because of what he said.^{C 42}And they told the woman, “We no longer believe because of what you said, since we have heard for ourselves and know that this really is the Saviorⁱ of the world.”^D