John 4

Chapter 4.

4 ¹So when Jesus knew the Pharisees heard he was making and baptizing more disciples than John. ²(though Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples were), ³he left Judea and went back to Galilee. ⁴And he had to pass through Samaria. ⁵So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field Jacob gave his son Joseph. ⁶Jacob's well was there. Jesus, tired from the trip, sat down at the well—about noon. ^a a v6 Counting from sunrise, the sixth hour is about noon.

⁷A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink."

⁸(For his disciples had gone into the town to buy food.).

⁹The Samaritan woman said, "You're a Jew; why ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?" (Jews don't associate with Samaritans.).

¹⁰Jesus answered her, "If you knew our Father's gift, and who asks you, 'Give me a drink,' you'd have asked him, and he'd have given you living water."

¹¹The woman said to him, "Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do you get this living water? ¹²Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, drank from it himself, with his sons and livestock?"

¹³Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst again; that water will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

¹⁵The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so I won't get thirsty or come here to draw water."

¹⁶Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come back here."

¹⁷The woman answered, "I have no husband." Jesus told her, "You're right to say you have no husband.

¹⁸For you've had five husbands, and the man you have now isn't your husband. You've spoken the truth."

¹⁹The woman said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet. ²⁰Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say Jerusalem is where people must worship."

²¹Jesus told her, "Woman, believe me: an hour is coming when you'll worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²²You worship what you don't know; we worship what we know—salvation comes from the Jews. ²³But a time is coming, and now is, when true worshipers worship the Father in spirit and truth—for the Father seeks such worshipers. ²⁴The Father is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." ^b b v24 Throughout this passage Jesus teaches about worship of the Father; the One whose nature is spirit is the same Father who seeks true worshipers.

²⁵The woman said to him, "I know Messiah—the one called Christ—is coming. When he comes, he will tell us everything."

²⁶Jesus said to her, "I am he—the one speaking to you."

²⁷Just then his disciples returned, amazed he was talking with a woman. Yet no one said, "What do you want?" or, "Why talk with her?" ²⁸So the woman left her water jar and went back to town and said to the people, ²⁹"Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" ³⁰They left the town and were coming to him.

³¹Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, "Rabbi, eat."

³²But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about."

³³So the disciples said to one another, "Has anyone brought him something to eat?"

³⁴Jesus said to them, "My food is doing the will of the one who sent me and finishing his work. ³⁵Don't you say, 'Four months more, then harvest comes'? Look, I tell you: raise your eyes, see the fields—white for harvest. ³⁶Already the harvester earns wages, gathering fruit for eternal life, so that planter and harvester may rejoice together. ³⁷For here the saying holds true: 'One plants and another harvests.' ³⁸I sent you to reap what you didn't work for. Others worked, and you have entered into their labor."

Samaria Believes

³⁹Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony: "He told me everything I ever did." ⁴⁰When the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; he stayed two days. ⁴¹And many more believed because of his word. ⁴²They told the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe—we've heard for ourselves, and we know this man truly is the Savior of the world."

Back to Galilee

⁴³After the two days he departed from there for Galilee. ⁴⁴(For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown.). ⁴⁵When he arrived in Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all he did in Jerusalem at the feast—they too had gone to the feast. ⁴⁶He went again to Cana in Galilee, where he had turned water to wine. A royal official's son was sick at Capernaum. ⁴⁷Hearing that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and begged him to come down and heal his son, who was about to die.

⁴⁸So Jesus said to him, "Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will never believe."

⁴⁹The royal official said to him, "Sir, come down before my child dies."

⁵⁰Jesus said to him, "Go; your son will live." The man believed what Jesus told him and left.

⁵¹As he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his boy was living. ⁵²So he asked them the hour he improved, and they said, "Yesterday at the seventh hour, the fever left him."

⁵³So the father knew this was the hour when Jesus told him, "Your son will live." He and his whole household believed.

⁵⁴This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.