JohnChapter 4

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¹The Pharisees had heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John. Jesus knew they had heard this. ²(But Jesus himself was not baptizing. His disciples were.) ³So he left Judea and went back to Galilee. ⁴He had to go through Samaria on the way. ⁵So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar. It was near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶Jacob's well was there. Jesus was tired from his trip, so he sat down by the well. It was about noon.a ⁷A Samaritan woman came to get water. Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." ⁸(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) ⁹The woman said, "You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (Jews don't have anything to do with Samaritans.) ¹⁰Jesus answered, "You don't know God's gift. You don't know who is asking you for a drink. If you did, you would have asked him. And he would have given you living water." ¹¹"Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to get water with, and the well is deep. So where will you get this living water? ¹²Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us this well. He drank from it himself, and so did his sons and his animals." ¹³Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. ¹⁴But whoever drinks the water I give him will never be thirsty. The water I give him will become a spring of water inside him. It will bubble up into eternal life." ¹⁵The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water! Then I won't get thirsty. And I won't have to keep coming here to get water." ¹⁶Jesus told her, "Go, call your husband and come back." ¹⁷"I don't have a husband," the woman answered. Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. ¹⁸The fact is, you have had five husbands. And the man you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true." ¹⁹"Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. ²⁰Our fathers worshiped on this mountain. But you Jews say that people must worship in Jerusalem." ²¹"Believe me, woman," Jesus answered, "a time is coming when you will not worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. ²²You people worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, because salvation comes from the Jews. ²³But a time is coming, and it is already here. The true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father is looking for people like that to worship him. ²⁴God is Spirit, and the people who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth." ²⁵The woman said, "I know that the Messiah (called Christ) is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us." ²⁶Jesus answered, "I am he, the one speaking to you." ²⁷Just then his disciples came back. They were surprised that he was talking with a woman. But no one asked him, "What do you want from her?" or "Why are you talking with her?" ²⁸Then the woman left her water jar and went back into the town. She said to the people, ²⁹"Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could he be the Messiah?" ³⁰So the people left the town and went out toward Jesus. ³¹In the meantime, the disciples kept asking him, "Rabbi, eat something." ³²But he told them, "I have food to eat that you don't know about." ³³So the disciples asked each other, "Did someone bring him food?" ³⁴Jesus said, "My food is to do what the one who sent me wants. My food is to finish his work. ³⁵Don't you say, 'Four more months, and then the harvest comes'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. ³⁶Already the one who harvests is getting paid. He is gathering a crop for eternal life. So the one who plants and the one who harvests can be glad together. ³⁷The saying is true here: 'One person plants and another harvests.' ³⁸I sent you to harvest a crop you did not work for. Others did the hard work, and now you have joined in their work." ³⁹Many Samaritans from that town believed in Jesus because of what the woman said. She told them, "He told me everything I ever did." ⁴⁰So the Samaritans came to him and asked him to stay with them. He stayed two days. ⁴¹And many more people believed because of his message. ⁴²They told the woman, "Now we believe, and not just because of what you said. We have heard him ourselves. We know that this man really is the Savior of the world." ⁴³After the two days, Jesus left for Galilee. ⁴⁴Jesus himself had said that a prophet gets no honor in his own hometown. ⁴⁵But when he got to Galilee, the people there welcomed him. They had seen all the great things he did in Jerusalem at the feast. They had gone to the feast too. ⁴⁶So Jesus came again to Cana in Galilee. That's where he had turned the water into wine. And there was a royal official whose son was sick at Capernaum. ⁴⁷The official heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee. So he went to Jesus and begged him to come down and heal his son. The boy was about to die. ⁴⁸Jesus said to him, "You people will never believe unless you see signs and wonders." ⁴⁹"Sir," the official said, "please come down before my child dies." ⁵⁰"Go," said Jesus. "Your son will live." The man believed what Jesus said, and he left. ⁵¹While he was still on his way home, his servants met him. They told him his boy was alive. ⁵²He asked them what time his son got better. They told him, "The fever left him yesterday at one in the afternoon."b ⁵³Then the father knew that this was the exact time Jesus had told him, "Your son will live." So he and his whole family believed. ⁵⁴This was the second sign Jesus did after he came from Judea to Galilee.