Old/New Testament
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.”
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.
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.