A Samaritan Woman Meets Her Messiah

4 Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and ^(A)baptized more disciples than John ² (though Jesus Himself did not baptize, but His disciples), ³ He left Judea and departed again to Galilee. ⁴ But He needed to go through Samaria.

⁵ So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that ^(B)Jacob ^(C)gave to his son Joseph. ⁶ Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

⁷ A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” ⁸ For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.

⁹ Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For ^(D)Jews have no dealings with ^(E)Samaritans.

¹⁰ Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the ^(F)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 ^(G)living water.”

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

¹³ Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, ¹⁴ but ^(H)whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him ^(I)will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”

^15 (J)The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”

¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”

¹⁷ The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.”

Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ ¹⁸ for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.”

¹⁹ The woman said to Him, “Sir, ^(K)I perceive that You are a prophet. ²⁰ Our fathers worshiped on ^(L)this mountain, and you Jews say that in ^(M)Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.”

²¹ Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming ^(N)when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. ²² You worship ^(O)what you do not know; we know what we worship, for ^(P)salvation is of the Jews. ²³ But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will ^(Q)worship the Father in ^(R)spirit ^(S)and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. ^24 (T)God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

²⁵ The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah ^(U)is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, ^(V)He will tell us all things.”

²⁶ Jesus said to her, ^(W)“I who speak to you am He.”

The Whitened Harvest

²⁷ And at this point His disciples came, and they marveled that He talked with a woman; yet no one said, “What do You seek?” or, “Why are You talking with her?”

²⁸ The woman then left her waterpot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, ²⁹ “Come, see a Man ^(X)who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” ³⁰ Then they went out of the city and came to Him.

³¹ In the meantime His disciples urged Him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.”

³² But He said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.”

³³ Therefore the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought Him anything to eat?”

³⁴ Jesus said to them, ^(Y)“My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to ^(Z)finish His work. ³⁵ Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes ^(AA)the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, ^(AB)for they are already white for harvest! ^36 (AC)And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that ^(AD)both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. ³⁷ For in this the saying is true: ^(AE)‘One sows and another reaps.’ ³⁸ I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; ^(AF)others have labored, and you have entered into their labors.”

The Savior of the World

³⁹ And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him ^(AG)because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all that I ever did.” ⁴⁰ So when the Samaritans had come to Him, they urged Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. ⁴¹ And many more believed because of His own ^(AH)word.

⁴² Then they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not because of what you said, for ^(AI)we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed ^[a]the Christ, the Savior of the world.”