John 4:1-30

Modern English Version

Jesus and the Samaritan Woman

4 Now when the Lord learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John ² (though Jesus Himself did not baptize, but His disciples), ³ He left Judea and departed again to Galilee.

⁴ Now it was necessary that He go through Samaria. ⁵ So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there. Jesus, therefore, being exhausted from His journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

⁷ A woman of Samaria came there to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” ⁸ For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.

⁹ Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.

¹⁰ Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who is saying to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

¹¹ The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? ¹² Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, along with his sons and his livestock?”

¹³ Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water that I shall give him will become in him a well of water springing up into eternal life.”

¹⁵ The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not thirst, nor come here to draw.”

¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”

¹⁷ The woman answered, “I have no husband.”

Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband,’ ¹⁸ for you have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband. So you have spoken truthfully.”

¹⁹ The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. ²⁰ Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you all say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.”

²¹ Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the 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 know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. ²³ Yet the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For the Father seeks such to worship Him. ²⁴ God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him 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 tell us all things.”

²⁶ Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”

²⁷ Then His disciples came. They marveled that He talked with a woman. Yet no one said, “What do You seek?” or, “Why are You talking with her?”

²⁸ The woman then left her water pot, 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?” ³⁰ They went out of the city and came to Him.