John 4

¹ When Jesus heard that the Pharisees had found out that he was making and baptising more disciplesthan John-

² though in fact it was his disciples who baptised, not Jesus himself-

³ he left Judaea and went back to Galilee.

⁴ He had to pass through Samaria.

⁵ On the way he came to the Samaritan town cal ed Sychar near the land that Jacob gave to his sonJoseph.

⁶ Jacob's wel was there and Jesus, tired by the journey, sat down by the wel . It was about the sixth hour.

⁷ When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, 'Give me something to drink.'

⁸ His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.

⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, 'You are a Jew. How is it that you ask me, a Samaritan, forsomething to drink?' -- Jews, of course, do not associate with Samaritans.

¹⁰ Jesus replied to her: If you only knew what God is offering and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give mesomething to drink,' you would have been the one to ask, and he would have given you living water.

¹¹ 'You have no bucket, sir,' she answered, 'and the well is deep: how do you get this living water?

¹² Are you a greater man than our father Jacob, who gave us this wel and drank from it himself with hissons and his cattle?'

¹³ Jesus replied: Whoever drinks this water wil be thirsty again;

¹⁴ but no one who drinks the water that I shal give wil ever be thirsty again: the water that I shal give wil become a spring of water within, welling up for eternal life.

¹⁵ 'Sir,' said the woman, 'give me some of that water, so that I may never be thirsty or come here again todraw water.'

¹⁶ 'Go and call your husband,' said Jesus to her, 'and come back here.'

¹⁷ The woman answered, 'I have no husband.' Jesus said to her, 'You are right to say, "I have nohusband";

¹⁸ for although you have had five, the one you now have is not your husband. You spoke the truth there.'

¹⁹ 'I see you are a prophet, sir,' said the woman.

²⁰ 'Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, though you say that Jerusalem is the place where one oughtto worship.'

²¹ Jesus said: Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you wil worship the Father neither on thismountain nor in Jerusalem.

²² You worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know; for salvation comes from the Jews.

²³ But the hour is coming -- indeed is already here -- when true worshippers wil worship the Father inspirit and truth: that is the kind of worshipper the Father seeks.

²⁴ God is spirit, and those who worship must worship in spirit and truth.

²⁵ The woman said to him, 'I know that Messiah -- that is, Christ -- is coming; and when he comes he wilexplain everything.'

²⁶ Jesus said, 'That is who I am, I who speak to you.'

²⁷ At this point his disciples returned and were surprised to find him speaking to a woman, though noneof them asked, 'What do you want from her?' or, 'What are you talking to her about?'

²⁸ The woman put down her water jar and hurried back to the town to tel the people,

²⁹ 'Come and see a man who has told me everything I have done; could this be the Christ?'

³⁰ This brought people out of the town and they made their way towards him.

³¹ Meanwhile, the disciples were urging him, 'Rabbi, do have something to eat';

³² but he said, 'I have food to eat that you do not know about.'

³³ So the disciples said to one another, 'Has someone brought him food?'

³⁴ But Jesus said: My food is to do the will of the one who sent me, and to complete his work.

³⁵ Do you not have a saying: Four months and then the harvest? Wel , I tel you, look around you, look atthe fields; already they are white, ready for harvest!

³⁶ Already the reaper is being paid his wages, already he is bringing in the grain for eternal life, so thatsower and reaper can rejoice together.

³⁷ For here the proverb holds true: one sows, another reaps;

³⁸ I sent you to reap a harvest you have not laboured for. Others have laboured for it; and you have comeinto the rewards of their labour.

³⁹ Many Samaritans of that town believed in him on the strength of the woman's words of testimony, 'Hetold me everything I have done.'

⁴⁰ So, when the Samaritans came up to him, they begged him to stay with them. He stayed for two days,and

⁴¹ many more came to believe on the strength of the words he spoke to them;

⁴² and they said to the woman, 'Now we believe no longer because of what you told us; we have heardhim ourselves and we know that he is indeed the Saviour of the world.'

⁴³ When the two days were over Jesus left for Galilee.

⁴⁴ He himself had declared that a prophet is not honoured in his own home town.

⁴⁵ On his arrival the Galileans received him wel , having seen al that he had done at Jerusalem duringthe festival which they too had attended.

⁴⁶ He went again to Cana in Galilee, where he had changed the water into wine. And there was a royalofficial whose son was il at Capernaum;

⁴⁷ hearing that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judaea, he went and asked him to come and cure hisson, as he was at the point of death.

⁴⁸ Jesus said to him, 'Unless you see signs and portents you will not believe!'

⁴⁹ 'Sir,' answered the official, 'come down before my child dies.'

⁵⁰ 'Go home,' said Jesus, 'your son wil live.' The man believed what Jesus had said and went on his wayhome;

⁵¹ and while he was stil on the way his servants met him with the news that his boy was alive.

⁵² He asked them when the boy had begun to recover. They replied, 'The fever left him yesterday at theseventh hour.'

⁵³ The father realised that this was exactly the time when Jesus had said, 'Your son wil live'; and he andal his household believed.

⁵⁴ This new sign, the second, Jesus performed on his return from Judaea to Galilee.