Book of Common Prayer

God’s unchangeable promise

¹³ When God was making his promise to Abraham, you see, he had nobody else greater than himself by whom he could swear, and so he swore by himself, ¹⁴ with the words, “I will most surely bless you, and multiply you very greatly.” ¹⁵ And so in this way Abraham, after much patience, obtained the promise. ¹⁶ People regularly swear by someone greater than themselves, and in all their disputes the oath confirms the matter and brings it to closure. ¹⁷ So when God wanted to show all the more clearly to the heirs of the promise just how unchangeable his will was, he guaranteed it with an oath, ¹⁸ so that through two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible that God should tell a lie, those of us who have come for refuge should have solid encouragement to take hold of the hope which lies before us. ¹⁹ We have this hope like an anchor, secure, solid, and penetrating into the inner place behind the curtain, ²⁰ where Jesus has gone in ahead of us and on our behalf, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

The woman of Samaria

4 So when Jesus knew that the Pharisees had heard that he was making more disciples than John, and was baptizing them ² (Jesus himself didn’t baptize people; it was his disciples who were doing it), ³ he left Judaea and went back to Galilee.

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.”