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!”^* ³²But 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?”^* ³⁴Jesus 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 ³⁶The 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.”

Read in Logos

John 4:34: Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.”

Footnotes

*The word “point” is not in the Greek text but is implied
aAssuming the term is used here in a generic sense to refer to persons of either gender, it should be translated “people”; if instead the term here refers only to the town leaders or elders who met at the town gate, then “men” would be appropriate
*Here the direct object is supplied from context in the English translation
*The imperfect tense has been translated as ingressive here (“began to say”)
*Here the direct object is supplied from context in the English translation
*The negative construction in Greek anticipates a negative answer here, indicated by the supplied phrase “did they” in the translation
bSome interpreters and Bible translations place the word “already” at the beginning of the next verse: “Already the one who reaps receives wages …”
*The word “point” is not in the Greek text but is implied