John 4:4-30

New Testament for Everyone

⁴ He had to go through Samaria, ⁵ and he came to a town in Samaria named Sychar. It was near the place which Jacob gave to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there. So Jesus, tired from the journey, sat down there by the well. It was about midday.

⁷ A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus spoke to her.

“Give me a drink,” he said. ⁸ (The disciples had gone off into the town to buy food.)

⁹ “What!” said the Samaritan woman. “You, a Jew, asking for a drink from me, a woman, and a Samaritan at that?” (Jews, you see, don’t have any dealings with Samaritans.)

¹⁰ “If only you’d known God’s gift,” replied Jesus, “and who it is that’s saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you’d have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

¹¹ “But sir,” replied the woman, “you haven’t got a bucket! And the well’s deep! So how were you thinking of getting living water? ¹² Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself, with his sons and his animals?”

¹³ “Everyone who drinks this water,” Jesus replied, “will get thirsty again. ¹⁴ But anyone who drinks the water I’ll give them won’t ever be thirsty again. No: the water I’ll give them will become a spring of water welling up to the life of God’s new age.”

¹⁵ “Sir,” the woman said, “give me this water! Then I won’t be thirsty anymore, and I won’t have to come here to draw from the well.”

Jesus and the woman

¹⁶ “Well then,” said Jesus to the woman, “go and call your husband and come here.”

¹⁷ “I haven’t got a husband,” replied the woman.

“You’re telling me you haven’t got a husband!” replied Jesus. ¹⁸ “The fact is, you’ve had five husbands, and the one you’ve got now isn’t your husband. You were speaking the truth!”

¹⁹ “Well, sir,” replied the woman, “I can see you’re a prophet . . . ²⁰ Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain. And you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”

²¹ “Believe me, woman,” replied Jesus, “the time is coming when you won’t worship the father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. ²² You worship what you don’t know. We worship what we do know; salvation, you see, is indeed from the Jews. ²³ But the time is coming—indeed, it’s here already!—when true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and in truth. Yes; that’s the kind of worshipers the father is looking for. ²⁴ God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”

²⁵ “I know that Messiah is coming,” said the woman, “the one they call ‘the anointed.’ When he comes, he’ll tell us everything.”

²⁶ “I’m the one—the one speaking to you right now,” said Jesus.

Sower and reaper rejoice together

²⁷ Just then Jesus’ disciples came up. They were astonished that he was talking with a woman; but nobody said “What did you want?” or “Why were you talking with her?” ²⁸ So the woman left her water-jar, went into the town and spoke to the people.

²⁹ “Come on!” she said. “Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did! You don’t think he can be the Messiah, do you?”

³⁰ So they left the town and were coming out to him.