A Woman of Samaria

Now the Lord knew that the Pharisees were being told, “Jesus is making more disciples, and baptizing more than John.” (Although His disciples, not Jesus Himself, baptized). So He left Judea and went away again to Galilee. And He needed to pass through Samaria.

That’s how He came to a city of Samaria, called Sychar, near the property that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus, then, being tired from the journey, sat down there at the well. It was about noon, the sixth hour.

A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” Now His disciples had gone on into the town to buy some food.

The Samaritan woman said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Judean, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Judeans have no dealings with Samaritans.)

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is says to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have no container, and the well is deep. Where will You get this ‘living water?’ Are You greater than our forefather Jacob, who gave us this well, from which he and his sons and his livestock also drank?”

Jesus answered her, saying, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst — never again. The water that I will give him shall become in him a fountain of water springing up to life everlasting.”

The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not thirst, nor come here to draw.”

Jesus said, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”

The woman answered Him, “I have no husband.”

Jesus said to her, “You do well to say, ‘I have no husband,’ since you’ve had five husbands, and the man you have now is not your husband. In this you told the truth.”

The woman said to Him, “Sir, I see that You are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain. But you [Judeans] say that the right place to worship is in Jerusalem.”

Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither worship the Father on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, for salvation is from the Judeans.

“But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is also looking for this kind, those who worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ). When He comes, He will tell us all things.”

Jesus said to her, “I am He who speaks to you.”

And just then His disciples arrived. They were amazed that He was talking with a woman, yet no one said, “What do You want?” or, “Why are You talking with her?”

But the woman left her water jar, and went away into town, and told the people, “Come! See a man who told me everything I ever did! Could this possibly be the Messiah?” So the people left town, and came to Jesus.

Now in the meantime, the disciples tried to persuade Him, saying, “Rabbi, eat!”

But He said to them, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.”

This made the disciples ask each other, “Did someone bring Him food?”

Jesus said to them, “My food is that I might do the will of Him who sent Me, and complete His work. Do you not say, ‘Four more months, and then comes the harvest’? I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see the fields! Because they are already white for harvest.

“The one who reaps receives a reward, and gathers fruit for eternal life, so that both sower and reaper may rejoice together. For in this the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”

Now many Samaritans from that town believed in Him because of the statement in the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to Him, they asked Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. And many more believed because of His message.

Then they said to the woman, “We no longer believe because of your words, for we ourselves have heard. And we know that this really is the Messiah, the Savior of the world.”

The Second Sign

Now after the two days He left there, and went into Galilee, though Jesus Himself had said that a prophet has no honor in his own country. But as He entered Galilee, the Galileans welcomed Him, having seen all the things He had done at the celebration in Jerusalem. (For they had also gone up to the celebration.)

He then returned to Cana of Galilee, where He had changed the water into wine. But at Capernaum there was a certain royal official whose son was ill. When he heard that Jesus had come to Galilee from Judea, he went and asked Him to come down and heal his son, for he was about to die.

Jesus then said to him, “You will not believe unless you see signs and wonders.”

The official said to Him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”

Jesus said to him, “Go. Your son lives.”

The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went away. And then, as he was going back, his servants met him and told him, “Your son lives.”

Then he asked them the time when he improved, and they said, “Yesterday at the seventh hour [about 1:00 p.m.] the fever left him.” And so father knew that was the time when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” And he himself believed, and his entire household.

Again, this was a second sign that Jesus accomplished after coming into Galilee from Judea.

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