John 4:1–14

Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman

4Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John^z—²although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. ³So he left Judea^a and went back once more to Galilee.

⁴Now 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.

⁷When 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 town^e to buy food.)

⁹The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan^f woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.^a)

¹⁰Jesus 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? ¹²Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well^h and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

¹³Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.ⁱ Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water^j welling up to eternal life.”^k