⁴ He had to travel through Samaria;^{(A) 5} so he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar near the property^[a] that Jacob^(B) had given his son Joseph.^{(C) 6} Jacob’s well^(D) was there, and Jesus, worn out from his journey, sat down at the well. It was about noon.^[b]

⁷ A woman of Samaria came to draw water.^(E)

“Give me a drink,” Jesus said to her, ⁸ because his disciples had gone into town to buy food.

⁹ “How is it that you, a Jew,^(F) ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan^(G) woman?” she asked him. For Jews do not associate with^[c] Samaritans.^[d]

¹⁰ Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God,^(H) and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would ask him, and he would give you living water.”^(I)

¹¹ “Sir,”^(J) said the woman, “you don’t even have a bucket, and the well is deep. So where do you get this ‘living water’? ¹² You aren’t greater than our father Jacob,^(K) are you? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and livestock.”

¹³ Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. ¹⁴ But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again.^(L) In fact, the water I will give him will become a well^[e](M) of water springing up in him for eternal life.”^(N)

¹⁵ “Sir,” the woman said to him, “give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and come here to draw water.”

¹⁶ “Go call your husband,” he told her, “and come back here.”

¹⁷ “I don’t have a husband,” she answered.

“You have correctly said, ‘I don’t have a husband,’” Jesus said. ¹⁸ “For you’ve had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

¹⁹ “Sir,” the woman replied, “I see that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain,^(O) but you Jews say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.”^(P)

²¹ Jesus told her, “Believe me, woman, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²² You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews.^{(Q) 23} But an hour is coming, and is now here,^(R) when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth.^[f] Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him. ²⁴ God is spirit,^(S) and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in truth.”^(T)

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

²⁶ Jesus told her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.”^(W)

The Ripened Harvest

²⁷ Just then his disciples arrived, and they were amazed that he was talking with a woman. Yet no one said, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”

²⁸ Then the woman left her water jar, went into town, and told the people, ²⁹ “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” ^{(X) 30} They left the town and made their way to him.^(Y)

The Savior of the World

³⁹ Now many Samaritans^(A) from that town believed in him because of what the woman said^[a] when she testified,^(B) “He told me everything I ever did.” ⁴⁰ So when the Samaritans came to him,^(C) they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. ⁴¹ Many more believed because of what he said.^{[b] 42} And they told the woman, “We no longer believe because of what you said, since we have heard for ourselves and know that this really is the Savior^(D) of the world.”^[c]