⁷ When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”^{(A) 8} (His disciples had gone into the town^(B) to buy food.)

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

¹⁰ Jesus 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.”^(D)

¹¹ “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? ¹² Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well^(E) and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

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

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

¹⁶ He 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. ¹⁸ The 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.^{(J) 20} Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain,^(K) but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”^(L)

²¹ “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming^(M) when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.^{(N) 22} You Samaritans worship what you do not know;^(O) we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.^{(P) 23} Yet a time is coming and has now come^(Q) when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit^(R) and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. ²⁴ God is spirit,^(S) and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

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

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

The Disciples Rejoin Jesus

²⁷ Just then his disciples returned^(V) 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?”

²⁸ Then, 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.^(W) Could this be the Messiah?”^{(X) 30} They came out of the town and made their way toward him.