Jesus Speaks with a Samaritan Woman

4 Now when [fn]the Lord learned that the Pharisees heard he was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2 (although it was not Jesus himself who baptized them, but his disciples), 3 he left Judea and went [fn]away to Galilee. 4 But he had to pass through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there, so Jesus, wearied as he was from the journey, sat by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

7 When a woman from Samaria came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Give me some water to drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone into the city to buy food.) 9 So the Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that yoʋ, being a Jew, ask for water to drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If yoʋ knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to yoʋ, ‘Give me some water to drink,’ yoʋ would have asked him, and he would have given yoʋ living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, yoʋ do not even have a bucket to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then can yoʋ get this living water? 12 Are yoʋ greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and livestock?” 13 Jesus answered her, “Everyone who drinks this water will thirst again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will certainly never thirst again. On the contrary, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I will not get thirsty again and have to come here to draw water.”

16 Jesus said to her, “Go call yoʋr husband and come back here.” 17 The woman [fn]answered, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “Yoʋ have rightly said, ‘I have no husband,’ 18 for yoʋ have had five husbands, and the man yoʋ now have is not yoʋr husband; what yoʋ have said is true.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that yoʋ are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, an hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, because salvation is from the Jews. 23 But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to yoʋ am he.”

27 Just then his disciples came back, and they were amazed that he was speaking with a woman. However, no one said, “What do yoʋ seek?” or, “Why are yoʋ speaking with her?” 28 Then the woman left her water jar, went into the town, and said to the people, 29 “Come see a man who told me everything I have ever done. Could this be the Christ?” 30 So they left the town and began coming to him.

31 In the meantime the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33 So the disciples said to one another, “Could someone have brought him something to eat?” 34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. 35 Do you not say, ‘There are [fn]still four months and then comes the harvest’? I tell you, lift up your eyes and see that the fields are already ripe for harvest. 36 He who reaps receives wages and gathers fruit for eternal life, so that [fn]both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. 37 For in this [fn]the true saying is verified: ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”

39 Now many of the Samaritans from that town believed in Jesus because of the woman's testimony: “He told me everything I have ever done.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there for two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 So they said to the woman, “It is no longer because of yoʋr report that we believe, for we ourselves have heard, and we know that this is truly [fn]the Christ, the Savior of the world.”