John 4

1 So when Jesus knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and immersing more disciples than John — [a] 2 although Jesus himself was not immersing, but his disciples — 3 he left Judea and went away again into Galilee. 4 And he had to pass through Samaria. 5 So he comes to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the piece of land Jacob gave to his son Joseph; 6 and Jacob’s spring was there. So Jesus, worn out from the journey, was sitting just as he was by the spring. It was about the sixth hour. [b]

7 A woman of Samaria comes to draw water. Jesus says to her, “Give me a drink” 8 — for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. 9 So the Samaritan woman says to him, “How is it that you, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews do not use things together with Samaritans. [d]

10 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” [e] 11 The woman says to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do you get the living water? [f] 12 You 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?”

13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again; 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty, ever; but the water I will give him will become in him a spring of water leaping up into everlasting life.” † 15 The woman says to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty and may not come through here to draw.”

16 He says to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.” 17 The woman answered and said to him, “I have no husband.” Jesus says to her, “You said well, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. This you have said truly.” 19 The woman says to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers bowed down on this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where one must bow down.” [g]

21 Jesus says to her, “Trust me, woman, that an hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you bow down to the Father. 22 You bow down to what you do not know; we bow down to what we know, because rescue is from the Jews. [h] 23 But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true ones who bow down will bow down to the Father in spirit and truth; for indeed the Father is looking for such people to be the ones who bow down to him. 24 God is spirit, and those who bow down to him must bow down in spirit and truth.” †

25 The woman says to him, “I know that Messiah is coming, the one called Christ; when that one comes, he will announce all things to us.” 26 Jesus says to her, “I am — the one speaking to you.” [i]

27 And at this his disciples came, and they were amazed that he was speaking with a woman; yet no one said, “What are you looking for?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” 28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into the city, and says to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I have done. This could not be the Christ, could it?” 30 They went out of the city and were coming to him.

31 In the meantime the disciples were asking him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33 So the disciples were saying to one another, “No one brought him anything to eat, did they?” 34 Jesus says to them, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to complete his work.

35 “Do you not say that there are still four months and the harvest comes? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes and see the fields, that they are white for harvest. Already [j] 36 the reaper receives wages and gathers fruit for everlasting life, so that the sower may rejoice together with the reaper. 37 For in this the saying is true: ‘One is the sower and another the reaper.’ 38 I sent you to reap what you have not labored for; others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”

39 And from that city many of the Samaritans trusted in him because of the word of the woman testifying, “He told me everything I have done.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they were asking him to remain with them; and he remained there two days. 41 And many more trusted because of his word, 42 and they were saying to the woman, “It is no longer because of your talk that we trust; for we ourselves have heard, and we know that this is truly the rescuer of the world.” [k]

43 And after the two days he went out from there into Galilee; 44 for Jesus himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own homeland. [l] 45 So when he came into Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all that he did in Jerusalem at the feast, for they too had come to the feast.

46 So he came again to Cana of Galilee, where he had made the water wine. And there was a certain royal official whose son was sick in Capernaum. [m] 47 This man, hearing that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, went off to him and was asking that he come down and heal his son, for he was about to die. 48 So Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will never trust.” 49 The royal official says to him, “Sir, come down before my little boy dies.” 50 Jesus says to him, “Go; your son lives.” The man trusted the word that Jesus said to him, and he went.

51 And as he was already going down, his slaves met him, saying that his boy was alive. 52 So he asked them the hour in which he had gotten better. So they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” [n] 53 So the father knew that it was in that hour in which Jesus had said to him, “Your son lives,” and he himself trusted, and his whole household. 54 And this again, a second sign, Jesus did when he had come out of Judea into Galilee. [o]