John 4:1–6:71
Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman
4 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than Johnz—2 although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3 So he left Judeaa and went back once more to Galilee.
4 Now he had to go through Samaria.b 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.c 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.
7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”d 8 (His disciples had gone into the towne to buy food.)
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritanf 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.”g
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 wellh and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.i Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of waterj welling up to eternal life.”k
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirstyl 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.m 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain,n but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”o
21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is comingp when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.q 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know;r we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.s 23 Yet a time is coming and has now comet when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spiritu and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit,v and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ)w “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”x
27 Just then his disciples returnedy 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.z Could this be the Messiah?”a 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
31 Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi,b eat something.”
32 But he said to them, “I have food to eatc 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 willd of him who sent me and to finish his work.e 35 Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.f 36 Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvestsg a crop for eternal life,h so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. 37 Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’i 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 townj believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”k 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.”l
43 After the two daysm he left for Galilee. 44 (Now Jesus himself had pointed out that a prophet has no honor in his own country.)n 45 When he arrived in Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him. They had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival,o for they also had been there.
46 Once more he visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine.p And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. 47 When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea,q he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death.
48 “Unless you people see signs and wonders,”r Jesus told him, “you will never believe.”
49 The royal official said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”
50 “Go,” Jesus replied, “your son will live.”
The man took Jesus at his word and departed. 51 While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living. 52 When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, “Yesterday, at one in the afternoon, the fever left him.”
53 Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he and his whole households believed.
54 This was the second signt Jesus performed after coming from Judea to Galilee.
5 Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gateu a pool, which in Aramaicv is called Bethesdaa and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. [4]b 5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
7 “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”
8 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”w 9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
The day on which this took place was a Sabbath,x 10 and so the Jewish leadersy said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”z
11 But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”
12 So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”
13 The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.
14 Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinninga or something worse may happen to you.” 15 The man went away and told the Jewish leadersb that it was Jesus who had made him well.
16 So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. 17 In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Fatherc is always at his workd to this very day, and I too am working.” 18 For this reason they tried all the more to kill him;e not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.f
19 Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself;g he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Sonh and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these,i so that you will be amazed. 21 For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life,j even so the Son gives lifek to whom he is pleased to give it. 22 Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son,l 23 that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.m
24 “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent men has eternal lifeo and will not be judgedp but has crossed over from death to life.q 25 Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now comer when the dead will hears the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have lifet in himself. 27 And he has given him authority to judgeu because he is the Son of Man.
28 “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is comingv when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29 and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned.w 30 By myself I can do nothing;x I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just,y for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.z
31 “If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true.a 32 There is another who testifies in my favor,b and I know that his testimony about me is true.
33 “You have sent to John and he has testifiedc to the truth. 34 Not that I accept human testimony;d but I mention it that you may be saved.e 35 John was a lamp that burned and gave light,f and you chose for a time to enjoy his light.
36 “I have testimony weightier than that of John.g For the works that the Father has given me to finish—the very works that I am doingh—testify that the Father has sent me.i 37 And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me.j You have never heard his voice nor seen his form,k 38 nor does his word dwell in you,l for you do …