³⁶ When he saw the crowds, he felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dejected,^(A) like sheep without a shepherd.^(B)

Jesus and the Samaritan Woman

4 When Jesus^[a] learned that the Pharisees^(A) had heard he was making^(B) and baptizing more disciples than John^{(C) 2} (though Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples were), ³ he left Judea^(D) and went again to Galilee.^{(E) 4} He had to travel through Samaria;^{(F) 5} so he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar near the property^[b] that Jacob^(G) had given his son Joseph.^{(H) 6} Jacob’s well^(I) was there, and Jesus, worn out from his journey, sat down at the well. It was about noon.^[c]

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

“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,^(K) ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan^(L) woman?” she asked him. For Jews do not associate with^[d] Samaritans.^[e]

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

¹¹ “Sir,”^(O) 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,^(P) 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.^(Q) In fact, the water I will give him will become a well^[f](R) of water springing up in him for eternal life.”^(S)

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,^(T) but you Jews say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.”^(U)

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.^{(V) 23} But an hour is coming, and is now here,^(W) when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth.^[g] Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him. ²⁴ God is spirit,^(X) and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in truth.”^(Y)

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

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

8 ¹ But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.^(A)

An Adulteress Forgiven

² At dawn he went to the temple^(B) again, and all the people were coming to him.^(C) He sat down^(D) and began to teach them.

³ Then the scribes and the Pharisees^(E) brought a woman caught in adultery,^(F) making her stand in the center. ⁴ “Teacher,” they said to him, “this woman was caught in the act of committing adultery.^{(G) 5} In the law Moses^(H) commanded us to stone such women.^(I) So what do you say?” ⁶ They asked this to trap him,^(J) in order that they might have evidence to accuse him.

Jesus stooped down and started writing on the ground with his finger. ⁷ When they persisted in questioning him, he stood up and said to them, “The one without sin^(K) among you^(L) should be the first to throw a stone at her.”^{(M) 8} Then he stooped down again and continued writing on the ground. ⁹ When they heard this, they left one by one, starting with the older men. Only he was left, with the woman in the center. ¹⁰ When Jesus stood up, he said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

¹¹ “No one, Lord,”^[a] she answered.

“Neither do I condemn you,”^(N) said Jesus. “Go, and from now on do not sin anymore.”]

³⁸ But if I am doing them and you don’t believe me, believe the works. This way you will know and understand^[a] that the Father is in me and I in the Father.”^{(A) 39} Then they were trying again to seize him,^(B) but he escaped their grasp.^(C)

Many beyond the Jordan Believe in Jesus

⁴⁰ So he departed again across the Jordan^(D) to the place where John^(E) had been baptizing earlier, and he remained there. ⁴¹ Many came to him^(F) and said, “John never did a sign, but everything John said about this man was true.” ⁴² And many believed in him there.

The Anointing at Bethany

12 Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany^(A) where Lazarus^[a] was, the one Jesus had raised from the dead.^{(B) 2} So^(C) they gave a dinner for him there; Martha^(D) was serving them, and Lazarus was one of those reclining at the table with him. ³ Then Mary took a pound of perfume, pure and expensive nard, anointed Jesus’s feet, and wiped his feet with her hair.^(E) So the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

⁴ Then one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot^(F) (who was about to betray him), said, ⁵ “Why wasn’t this perfume sold for three hundred denarii^[b](G) and given to the poor?” ⁶ He didn’t say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief.^(H) He was in charge of the money-bag and would steal part of what was put in it.

⁷ Jesus answered, “Leave her alone; she has kept it for the day of my burial.^{(I) 8} For you always have the poor with you,^(J) but you do not always have me.”