Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Peace and hope
5 The result is this: since we have been declared “in the right” on the basis of faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus the Messiah. 2 Through him we have been allowed to approach, by faith, into this grace in which we stand; and we celebrate the hope of the glory of God.
3 That’s not all. We also celebrate in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces patience, 4 patience produces a well-formed character, and a character like that produces hope. 5 Hope, in its turn, does not make us ashamed, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the holy spirit who has been given to us.
Jesus’ death reveals God’s love and guarantees final salvation
6 This is all based on what the Messiah did: while we were still weak, at that very moment he died on behalf of the ungodly. 7 It’s a rare thing to find someone who will die on behalf of an upright person—though I suppose someone might be brave enough to die for a good person. 8 But this is how God demonstrates his own love for us: the Messiah died for us while we were still sinners.
9 How much more, in that case—since we have been declared to be in the right by his blood—are we going to be saved by him from God’s coming anger! 10 When we were enemies, you see, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son; if that’s so, how much more, having already been reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 And that’s not all. We even celebrate in God, through our Lord Jesus the Messiah, through whom we have now received this reconciliation.
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.
31 Meanwhile the disciples were nagging him.
“Come on, Rabbi!” they were saying. “You must have something to eat!”
32 “I’ve got food to eat that you know nothing about,” he said.
33 “Nobody’s brought him anything to eat, have they?” said the disciples to one another.
34 “My food,” replied Jesus, “is to do the will of the one who sent me, and to finish his work! 35 Don’t you have a saying, ‘Another four months, then comes harvest’? Well, let me tell you, raise your eyes and see! The fields are white! It’s harvest time already! 36 The reaper earns his pay, and gathers crops for the life of God’s coming age, so that sower and reaper can celebrate together. 37 This is where that saying comes true, ‘One sows, another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap what you didn’t work for. Others did the hard work, and you’ve come into the results.”
39 Several Samaritans from that town believed in Jesus because of what the woman said in evidence about him, “He told me everything I did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them. And he stayed there two days.
41 Many more believed because of what he said.
42 “We believe, too,” they said to the woman, “but it’s no longer because of what you told us. We’ve heard him ourselves! We know that he really is the one! He’s the savior of the world!”
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.