John 4:1-30

Lexham English Bible

The Samaritan Woman at Jacob’s Well

4 Now when Jesus knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John ² (although Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples), ³ he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. ⁴ And it was necessary for him to go through Samaria.

⁵ Now he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the piece of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ And Jacob’s well was there, so Jesus, because he had become tired from the journey, simply sat down at the well. It was about the sixth hour.

⁷ A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me water^[a] to drink.” ⁸ (For his disciples had gone away into the town so that they could buy food.) ⁹ So the Samaritan woman said to him, “How do you, being a Jew, ask from me water^[b] to drink, since I^[c] am a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)

¹⁰ Jesus answered and said to her, “If you had known the gift of God and who it is who says to you, ‘Give me water^[d] to drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” ¹¹ The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket and the well is deep! From where then do you get this living water? ¹² You are not greater than our father Jacob, are you,^[e] who gave us the well and drank from it himself, and his sons and his livestock?”

¹³ Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again. ¹⁴ But whoever drinks of this water which I will give to him will never be thirsty for eternity, but the water which I will give to him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” ¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or come here to draw water!”^{[f] 16} He said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.” ¹⁷ The woman answered and said to him, “I do not have a husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have said rightly, ‘I do not have a husband,’ ¹⁸ for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you have now is not your husband; this you have said truthfully!”

¹⁹ The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you people^[g] say that in Jerusalem is the place where it is necessary to worship.” ²¹ Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, that an hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. ²² You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, because salvation is from the Jews. ²³ But an hour is coming—and now is here^[h]—when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for indeed the Father seeks such people to be his worshipers. ²⁴ God is spirit, and the ones who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” ²⁵ The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (the one called Christ); “whenever that one comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” ²⁶ Jesus said to her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.^[i]

The Disciples and the Harvest

²⁷ And at this point^[j] his disciples came, and they were astonished that he was speaking with a woman. However, no one said, “What do you seek?” or “Why are you speaking with her?” ²⁸ So the woman left her water jar and went away into the town and said to the people,^{[k] 29} “Come, see a man who told me everything I have ever done! Perhaps this one is the Christ?” ³⁰ They went out from the town and were coming to him.