John 4:7–42

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

¹⁵The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty^l and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

¹⁶He 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. ¹⁸The 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 coming^p 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 come^t when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit^u and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. ²⁴God is spirit,^v and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

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

²⁶Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”^x

The Disciples Rejoin Jesus

²⁷Just then his disciples returned^y 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?”

²⁸Then, 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.

³¹Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi,^b eat something.”

³²But he said to them, “I have food to eat^c that you know nothing about.”

³³Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”

³⁴“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will^d 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 harvests^g a crop for eternal life,^h so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. ³⁷Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ⁱ is true. ³⁸I 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.”

Many Samaritans Believe

³⁹Many of the Samaritans from that town^j 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. ⁴¹And because of his words many more became believers.

⁴²They 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