John 4:1–54

¹When, now, the Lord became aware that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John—²although, indeed, Jesus himself did no baptizing but his disciples did—³he left Ju‧de′a and departed again for Gal′i‧lee.⁴But it was necessary for him to go through Sa‧mar′i‧a.⁵Accordingly he came to a city of Sa‧mar′i‧a called Sy′char near the field that Jacob gave to Joseph his son.⁶In fact, Jacob’s fountain was there. Now Jesus, tired out from the journey, was sitting at the fountain just as he was. The hour was about the sixth.

⁷A woman of Sa‧mar′i‧a came to draw water. Jesus said to her: “Give me a drink.”⁸(For his disciples had gone off into the city to buy foodstuffs.)⁹Therefore the Sa‧mar′i‧tan woman said to him: “How is it that you, despite being a Jew, ask me for a drink, when I am a Sa‧mar′i‧tan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Sa‧mar′i‧tans.)¹⁰In answer Jesus said to her: “If you had known the free gift of God and who it is that says to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”¹¹She said to him: “Sir, you have not even a bucket for drawing water, and the well is deep. From what source, therefore, do you have this living water?¹²You are not greater than our forefather Jacob, who gave us the well and who himself together with his sons and his cattle drank out of it, are you?”¹³In answer Jesus said to her: “Everyone drinking from this water will get thirsty again.¹⁴Whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty at all, but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water bubbling up to impart everlasting life.”¹⁵The woman said to him: “Sir, give me this water, so that I may neither thirst nor keep coming over to this place to draw water.”

¹⁶He said to her: “Go, call your husband and come to this place.”¹⁷In answer the woman said: “I do not have a husband.” Jesus said to her: “You said well, ‘A husband I do not have.’¹⁸For you have had five husbands, and the [man] you now have is not your husband. This you have said truthfully.”¹⁹The woman said to him: “Sir, I perceive you are a prophet.²⁰Our forefathers worshiped in this mountain; but ​YOU​ people say that in Jerusalem is the place where persons ought to worship.”²¹Jesus said to her: “Believe me, woman, The hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will ​YOU​ people worship the Father.²²YOU​ worship what ​YOU​ do not know; we worship what we know, because salvation originates with the Jews.²³Nevertheless, the hour is coming, and it is now, when the true worshipers will worship the Father with spirit and truth, for, indeed, the Father is looking for suchlike ones to worship him.²⁴God is a Spirit, and those worshiping him must worship with spirit and truth.”²⁵The woman said to him: “I know that Mes‧si′ah is coming, who is called Christ. Whenever that one arrives, he will declare all things to us openly.”²⁶Jesus said to her: “I who am speaking to you am he.”

²⁷Now at this point his disciples arrived, and they began to wonder because he was speaking with a woman. Of course, no one said: “What are you looking for?” or, “Why do you talk with her?”²⁸The woman, therefore, left her water jar and went off into the city and told the men:²⁹“Come here, see a man that told me all the things I did. This is not perhaps the Christ, is it?”³⁰They went out of the city and began coming to him.

³¹Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying: “Rabbi, eat.”³²But he said to them: “I have food to eat of which ​YOU​ do not know.”³³Therefore the disciples began saying to one another: “No one has brought him anything to eat, has he?”³⁴Jesus said to them: “My food is for me to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work.³⁵Do ​YOU​ not say that there are yet four months before the harvest comes? Look! I say to ​YOU: Lift up ​YOUR​ eyes and view the fields, that they are white for harvesting. Already³⁶the reaper is receiving wages and gathering fruit for everlasting life, so that the sower and the reaper may rejoice together.³⁷In this respect, indeed, the saying is true, One is the sower and another the reaper.³⁸I dispatched ​YOU​ to reap what ​YOU​ have spent no labor on. Others have labored, and ​YOU​ have entered into the benefit of their labor.”

³⁹Now many of the Sa‧mar′i‧tans out of that city put faith in him on account of the word of the woman who said in witness: “He told me all the things I did.”⁴⁰Therefore when the Sa‧mar′i‧tans came to him, they began asking him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days.⁴¹Consequently many more believed on account of what he said,⁴²and they began to say to the woman: “We do not believe any longer on account of your talk; for we have heard for ourselves and we know that this man is for a certainty the savior of the world.”

⁴³After the two days he left there for Gal′i‧lee.⁴⁴Jesus himself, however, bore witness that in his own homeland a prophet has no honor.⁴⁵When, therefore, he arrived in Gal′i‧lee, the Gal‧i‧le′ans received him, because they had seen all the things he did in Jerusalem at the festival, for they also had gone to the festival.

⁴⁶Accordingly he came again to Ca′na of Gal′i‧lee, where he had turned the water into wine. Now there was a certain attendant of the king whose son was sick in Ca‧per′na‧um.⁴⁷When this man heard that Jesus had come out of Ju‧de′a into Gal′i‧lee, he went off to him and began asking him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of dying.⁴⁸However, Jesus said to him: “Unless ​YOU​ people see signs and wonders, ​YOU​ will by no means believe.”⁴⁹The attendant of the king said to him: “Lord, come down before my young child dies.”⁵⁰Jesus said to him: “Go your way; your son lives.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went his way.⁵¹But already while he was on his way down his slaves met him to say that his boy was living.⁵²Therefore he began to inquire of them the hour in which he got better in health. Accordingly they said to him: “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.”⁵³Therefore the father knew it was in the very hour that Jesus said to him: “Your son lives.” And he and his whole household believed.⁵⁴Again this was the second sign Jesus performed when he came out of Ju‧de′a into Gal′i‧lee.