4

A Samaritan Woman Meets Her Messiah

¹Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and ⚓baptized more disciples than John ²(though Jesus Himself did not baptize, but His disciples), ³He left Judea and departed again to Galilee. ⁴But He needed to go through Samaria.
⁵So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that ⚓Jacob ⚓gave to his son Joseph. ⁶Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
⁷A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” ⁸For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
⁹Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For ⚓Jews have no dealings with ⚓Samaritans.
¹⁰Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the ⚓gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you ⚓living water.”
¹¹The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? ¹²Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?”
¹³Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, ¹⁴but ⚓whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him ⚓will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”
¹⁵⚓The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”
¹⁶Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”
¹⁷The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.”
Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ ¹⁸for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.”
¹⁹The woman said to Him, “Sir, ⚓I perceive that You are a prophet. ²⁰Our fathers worshiped on ⚓this mountain, and you Jews say that in ⚓Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.”
²¹Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming ⚓when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. ²²You worship ⚓what you do not know; we know what we worship, for ⚓salvation is of the Jews. ²³But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will ⚓worship the Father in ⚓spirit ⚓and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. ²⁴⚓God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
²⁵The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah ⚓is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, ⚓He will tell us all things.”
²⁶Jesus said to her, ⚓“I who speak to you am He.”

The Whitened Harvest

²⁷And at this point His disciples came, and they marveled that He talked with a woman; yet no one said, “What do You seek?” or, “Why are You talking with her?”
²⁸The woman then left her waterpot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, ²⁹“Come, see a Man ⚓who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” ³⁰Then they went out of the city and came to Him.
³¹In the meantime His disciples urged Him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.”
³²But He said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.”
³³Therefore the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought Him anything to eat?”
³⁴Jesus said to them, ⚓“My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to ⚓finish His work. ³⁵Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes ⚓the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, ⚓for they are already white for harvest! ³⁶⚓And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that ⚓both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. ³⁷For in this the saying is true: ⚓‘One sows and another reaps.’ ³⁸I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; ⚓others have labored, and you have entered into their labors.”

The Savior of the World

³⁹And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him ⚓because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all that I ever did.” ⁴⁰So when the Samaritans had come to Him, they urged Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. ⁴¹And many more believed because of His own ⚓word.
⁴²Then they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not because of what you said, for ⚓we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.”

Welcome at Galilee

⁴³Now after the two days He departed from there and went to Galilee. ⁴⁴For ⚓Jesus Himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country. ⁴⁵So when He came to Galilee, the Galileans received Him, ⚓having seen all the things He did in Jerusalem at the feast; ⚓for they also had gone to the feast.

A Nobleman’s Son Healed

⁴⁶So Jesus came again to Cana of Galilee ⚓where He had made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum. ⁴⁷When he heard that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to Him and implored Him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. ⁴⁸Then Jesus said to him, ⚓“Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe.”
⁴⁹The nobleman said to Him, “Sir, come down before my child dies!”
⁵⁰Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your son lives.” So the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he went his way. ⁵¹And as he was now going down, his servants met him and told him, saying, “Your son lives!”
⁵²Then he inquired of them the hour when he got better. And they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” ⁵³So the father knew that it was at the same hour in which Jesus said to him, “Your son lives.” And he himself believed, and his whole household.
⁵⁴This again is the second sign Jesus did when He had come out of Judea into Galilee.

4

Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman

¹Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— ²although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. ³So 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 noon.
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.⚓ )
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 livestock?”
¹³Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them 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 ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
²¹“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, 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 the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. ²⁴God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the 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, the one speaking to you—I 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 Messiah?” 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. ³⁵Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. ³⁶Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a 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 an 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 Festival, 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 signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe.”
⁴⁹The royal official said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”
⁵⁰“Go,” Jesus replied, “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, “Yesterday, at one in the afternoon, the fever left him.”
⁵³Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he and his whole household believed.
⁵⁴This was the second sign Jesus performed after coming from Judea to Galilee.