John 4
New American Standard Bible 1995
Jesus Goes to Galilee
4 Therefore when (A)the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and (B)baptizing more disciples than John 2 (although (C)Jesus Himself was not baptizing, but His (D)disciples were), 3 He left (E)Judea and went away (F)again into Galilee. 4 And He had to pass through (G)Samaria. 5 So He *came to a city of (H)Samaria called Sychar, near (I)the parcel of ground that (J)Jacob gave to his son Joseph; 6 and Jacob’s well was there. So Jesus, being wearied from His journey, was sitting thus by the well. It was about [a]the sixth hour.
The Woman of Samaria
7 There *came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus *said to her, “Give Me a drink.” 8 For His (K)disciples had gone away into (L)the city to buy food. 9 Therefore the (M)Samaritan woman *said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?” (For (N)Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 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 (O)living water.” 11 She *said to Him, “[b]Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that (P)living water? 12 You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who (Q)gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?” 13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him (R)shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to (S)eternal life.”
15 The woman *said to Him, “[c]Sir, (T)give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.” 16 He *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 correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.” 19 The woman *said to Him, “[d]Sir, I perceive that You are (U)a prophet. 20 (V)Our fathers worshiped in (W)this mountain, and you people say that (X)in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” 21 Jesus *said to her, “Woman, believe Me, (Y)an hour is coming when (Z)neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 (AA)You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for (AB)salvation is from the Jews. 23 But (AC)an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father (AD)in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. 24 God is [e]spirit, and those who worship Him must worship (AE)in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman *said to Him, “I know that (AF)Messiah is coming ((AG)He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.” 26 Jesus *said to her, “(AH)I who speak to you am He.”
27 At this point His (AI)disciples came, and they were amazed that He had been speaking with a woman, yet no one said, “What do You seek?” or, “Why do You speak with her?” 28 So the woman left her waterpot, and went into the city and *said to the men, 29 “Come, see a man (AJ)who told me all the things that I have done; (AK)this is not [f]the Christ, is it?” 30 They went out of the city, and were coming to Him.
31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging Him, saying, “(AL)Rabbi, eat.” 32 But He said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33 So the (AM)disciples were saying to one another, “No one brought Him anything to eat, did he?” 34 Jesus *said to them, “My food is to (AN)do the will of Him who sent Me and to (AO)accomplish His work. 35 Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white (AP)for harvest. 36 Already he who reaps is receiving (AQ)wages and is gathering (AR)fruit for (AS)life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. 37 For in this case the saying is true, ‘(AT)One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor.”
The Samaritans
39 From (AU)that city many of the Samaritans believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “(AV)He told me all the things that I have done.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they were asking Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. 41 Many more believed because of His word; 42 and they were saying to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One is indeed (AW)the Savior of the world.”
43 After (AX)the two days He went forth from there into Galilee. 44 For Jesus Himself testified that (AY)a prophet has no honor in his own country. 45 So when He came to Galilee, the Galileans received Him, (AZ)having seen all the things that He did in Jerusalem at the feast; for they themselves also went to the feast.
Healing a Nobleman’s Son
46 Therefore He came again to (BA)Cana of Galilee (BB)where He had made the water wine. And there was a royal official whose son was sick at (BC)Capernaum. 47 When he heard that Jesus had come (BD)out of Judea into Galilee, he went to Him and was imploring Him to come down and heal his son; for he was at the point of death. 48 So Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see [g](BE)signs and (BF)wonders, you simply will not believe.” 49 The royal official *said to Him, “[h]Sir, come down before my child dies.” 50 Jesus *said to him, “(BG)Go; your son lives.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started off. 51 As he was now going down, his slaves met him, saying that his [i]son was living. 52 So he inquired of them the hour when he began to get better. Then they said to him, “Yesterday at the [j]seventh hour the fever left him.” 53 So the father knew that it was at that hour in which Jesus said to him, “Your son lives”; and he himself believed and (BH)his whole household. 54 This is again a (BI)second [k]sign that Jesus performed when He had (BJ)come out of Judea into Galilee.
Footnotes
- John 4:6 Perhaps 6 p.m. Roman time or noon Jewish time
- John 4:11 Or Lord
- John 4:15 Or Lord
- John 4:19 Or Lord
- John 4:24 Or Spirit
- John 4:29 I.e. the Messiah
- John 4:48 Or attesting miracles
- John 4:49 Or Lord
- John 4:51 Or boy
- John 4:52 Perhaps 7 p.m. Roman time or 1 p.m. Jewish time
- John 4:54 Or attesting miracle
John 4
New Living Translation
Jesus and the Samaritan Woman
4 Jesus[a] knew the Pharisees had heard that he was baptizing and making more disciples than John 2 (though Jesus himself didn’t baptize them—his disciples did). 3 So he left Judea and returned to Galilee.
4 He had to go through Samaria on the way. 5 Eventually he came to the Samaritan village of Sychar, near the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there; and Jesus, tired from the long walk, sat wearily beside the well about noontime. 7 Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Please give me a drink.” 8 He was alone at the time because his disciples had gone into the village to buy some food.
9 The woman was surprised, for Jews refuse to have anything to do with Samaritans.[b] She said to Jesus, “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are you asking me for a drink?”
10 Jesus replied, “If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.”
11 “But sir, you don’t have a rope or a bucket,” she said, “and this well is very deep. Where would you get this living water? 12 And besides, do you think you’re greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well? How can you offer better water than he and his sons and his animals enjoyed?”
13 Jesus replied, “Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. 14 But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.”
15 “Please, sir,” the woman said, “give me this water! Then I’ll never be thirsty again, and I won’t have to come here to get water.”
16 “Go and get your husband,” Jesus told her.
17 “I don’t have a husband,” the woman replied.
Jesus said, “You’re right! You don’t have a husband— 18 for you have had five husbands, and you aren’t even married to the man you’re living with now. You certainly spoke the truth!”
19 “Sir,” the woman said, “you must be a prophet. 20 So tell me, why is it that you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place of worship, while we Samaritans claim it is here at Mount Gerizim,[c] where our ancestors worshiped?”
21 Jesus replied, “Believe me, dear woman, the time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans know very little about the one you worship, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes through the Jews. 23 But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way. 24 For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”
25 The woman said, “I know the Messiah is coming—the one who is called Christ. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26 Then Jesus told her, “I am the Messiah!”[d]
27 Just then his disciples came back. They were shocked to find him talking to a woman, but none of them had the nerve to ask, “What do you want with her?” or “Why are you talking to her?” 28 The woman left her water jar beside the well and ran back to the village, telling everyone, 29 “Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did! Could he possibly be the Messiah?” 30 So the people came streaming from the village to see him.
31 Meanwhile, the disciples were urging Jesus, “Rabbi, eat something.”
32 But Jesus replied, “I have a kind of food you know nothing about.”
33 “Did someone bring him food while we were gone?” the disciples asked each other.
34 Then Jesus explained: “My nourishment comes from doing the will of God, who sent me, and from finishing his work. 35 You know the saying, ‘Four months between planting and harvest.’ But I say, wake up and look around. The fields are already ripe[e] for harvest. 36 The harvesters are paid good wages, and the fruit they harvest is people brought to eternal life. What joy awaits both the planter and the harvester alike! 37 You know the saying, ‘One plants and another harvests.’ And it’s true. 38 I sent you to harvest where you didn’t plant; others had already done the work, and now you will get to gather the harvest.”
Many Samaritans Believe
39 Many Samaritans from the village believed in Jesus because the woman had said, “He told me everything I ever did!” 40 When they came out to see him, they begged him to stay in their village. So he stayed for two days, 41 long enough for many more to hear his message and believe. 42 Then they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not just because of what you told us, but because we have heard him ourselves. Now we know that he is indeed the Savior of the world.”
Jesus Heals an Official’s Son
43 At the end of the two days, Jesus went on to Galilee. 44 He himself had said that a prophet is not honored in his own hometown. 45 Yet the Galileans welcomed him, for they had been in Jerusalem at the Passover celebration and had seen everything he did there.
46 As he traveled through Galilee, he came to Cana, where he had turned the water into wine. There was a government official in nearby Capernaum whose son was very sick. 47 When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged Jesus to come to Capernaum to heal his son, who was about to die.
48 Jesus asked, “Will you never believe in me unless you see miraculous signs and wonders?”
49 The official pleaded, “Lord, please come now before my little boy dies.”
50 Then Jesus told him, “Go back home. Your son will live!” And the man believed what Jesus said and started home.
51 While the man was on his way, some of his servants met him with the news that his son was alive and well. 52 He asked them when the boy had begun to get better, and they replied, “Yesterday afternoon at one o’clock his fever suddenly disappeared!” 53 Then the father realized that that was the very time Jesus had told him, “Your son will live.” And he and his entire household believed in Jesus. 54 This was the second miraculous sign Jesus did in Galilee after coming from Judea.
New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. All rights reserved.
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
