The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and
baptizing more disciples than John, 2although in
fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples.
3When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went
back once more to Galilee.
4Now he had to go through Samaria. 5So he came to
a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground
Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was
there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat
down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus
said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8(His disciples
had gone into the town to buy food.)
9The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew
and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for
a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. c)
10Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God
and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have
asked him and he would have given you living water.”
11“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw
with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living
water? 12Are you greater than our father Jacob, who
gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also
his sons and his flocks and herds?”
13Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water
will be thirsty again, 14but whoever drinks the water I
give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him
will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal
life.”
15The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so
that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to
draw water.”
16He told her, “Go, call your husband and come
back.”
17“I have no husband,” she replied.
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 now have is not your husband.
What you have just said is quite true.”
19“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a
prophet. 20Our fathers worshiped on this mountain,
but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship
is in Jerusalem.”
21Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is
coming when you will worship the Father neither on
this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You Samaritans worship
what you do not know; we worship what we do
know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23Yet a time is coming
and has now come when the true worshipers will
worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the
kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24God is spirit, and
his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
25The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called
Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything
to us.”
26Then Jesus declared, “I who speak to you am he.”
The Disciples Rejoin Jesus
27Just then his disciples returned and were surprised
to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked,
“What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”
28Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back
to the town and said to the people, 29“Come, see a man
who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the
Christ d?” 30They came out of the town and made their
way toward him.
31Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat
something.”
32But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you
know nothing about.”
33Then his disciples said to each other, “Could
someone have brought him food?”
34“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who
sent me and to finish his work. 35Do you not say, ‘Four
months more and then the harvest’? I tell you, open
your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.
36Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now
he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower
and the reaper may be glad together. 37Thus the saying
‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. 38I sent you to
reap what you have not worked for. Others have done
the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of
their labor.”
Many Samaritans Believe
39Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in
him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything
I ever did.” 40So when the Samaritans came to
him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed
two days. 41And because of his words many more became
believers.
42They said to the woman, “We no longer believe
just because of what you said; now we have heard for
ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior
of the world.”
Jesus Heals the Official’s Son
43After the two days he left for Galilee. 44(Now Jesus
himself had pointed out that a prophet has no honor in
his own country.) 45When he arrived in Galilee, the Galileans
welcomed him. They had seen all that he had
done in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, for they also
had been there.
46Once more he visited Cana in Galilee, where he
had turned the water into wine. And there was a certain
royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. 47When
this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea,
he went to him and begged him to come and heal
his son, who was close to death.
48“Unless you people see miraculous signs and
wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe.”
49The royal official said, “Sir, come down before my
child dies.”
50Jesus replied, “You may go. Your son will live.”
The man took Jesus at his word and departed.
51While he was still on the way, his servants met him
with the news that his boy was living. 52When he inquired
as to the time when his son got better, they said
to him, “The fever left him yesterday at the seventh
hour.”
53Then the father realized that this was the exact
time at which Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.”
So he and all his household believed.
54This was the second miraculous sign that Jesus
performed, having come from Judea to Galilee.
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