John 4:11–54

¹¹The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket and the well is deep! From where then do you get this living water? ¹²You are not greater than our father Jacob, are you,^* who gave us the well and drank from it himself, and his sons and his livestock?”

¹³Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again. ¹⁴But whoever drinks of this water which I will give to him will never be thirsty for eternity, but the water which I will give to him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” ¹⁵The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or come here to draw water!”^{* 16}He said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.” ¹⁷The woman answered and said to him, “I do not have a husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have said rightly, ‘I do not have a husband,’ ¹⁸for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you have now is not your husband; this you have said truthfully!”

¹⁹The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. ²⁰Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you people^* say that in Jerusalem is the place where it is necessary to worship.” ²¹Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, that an hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. ²²You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, because salvation is from the Jews. ²³But an hour is coming—and now is here^*—when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for indeed the Father seeks such people to be his worshipers. ²⁴God is spirit, and the ones who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” ²⁵The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (the one called Christ); “whenever that one comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” ²⁶Jesus said to her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.^*

The Disciples and the Harvest

²⁷And at this point^* his disciples came, and they were astonished that he was speaking with a woman. However, no one said, “What do you seek?” or “Why are you speaking with her?” ²⁸So the woman left her water jar and went away into the town and said to the people,^{a 29}“Come, see a man who told me everything I have ever done! Perhaps this one is the Christ?” ³⁰They went out from the town and were coming to him.

³¹In the meanwhile the disciples were asking him, saying, “Rabbi, eat something!”^{* 32}But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” ³³So the disciples began to say^* to one another, “No one brought him anything^* to eat, did they?”^{* 34}Jesus said to them, “My food is that I do the will of the one who sent me and complete his work. ³⁵Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months and the harvest comes’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, that they are white for harvest already.^{b 36}The one who reaps receives wages and gathers fruit for eternal life, in order that the one who sows and the one who reaps can rejoice together. ³⁷For in this instance^* the saying is true, ‘It is one who sows and another who reaps.’ ³⁸I sent you to reap what you did not work for; others have worked, and you have entered into their work.”

The Samaritans and the Savior of the World

³⁹Now from that town many of the Samaritans believed in him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me everything that I have done.” ⁴⁰So when the Samaritans came to him, they began asking^* him to stay with them. And he stayed there two days. ⁴¹And many more believed because of his word, ⁴²And they were saying to the woman, “No longer because of what you said^c do we believe, for we ourselves have heard, and we know that this one is truly the Savior of the world!”

Return to Galilee

⁴³And after the two days he departed from there into Galilee. ⁴⁴For Jesus himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own homeland. ⁴⁵So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, because they^* had seen all the things he had done in Jerusalem at the feast (for they themselves had also come to the feast).

A Royal Official’s Son Is Healed

⁴⁶Now he came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. And there was at Capernaum a certain royal official whose son was sick. ⁴⁷This man, when he^* heard that Jesus had come from Judea into Galilee, went to him and asked that he come down and heal his son, for he was about to die. ⁴⁸So Jesus said to him, “Unless you people^* see signs and wonders, you will never believe!” ⁴⁹The royal official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies!” ⁵⁰Jesus said to him, “Go, your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he departed.

⁵¹Now as^* he was going down, his slaves met him, saying that his child was alive. ⁵²So he inquired from them the hour at which he had gotten better. Then they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” ⁵³So the father knew that it was that^d same hour at which Jesus said to him, “Your son will live,” and he himself believed, and his whole household. ⁵⁴Now this is again a second sign Jesus performed when he^* came from Judea into Galilee.