(John 4:5-26)
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 the sixth hour.
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 flocks and herds?”
13Jesus answered, “Everyone who
drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14but whoever
drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I
give him will become in him 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 fathers worshiped on this mountain, but
you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in
Jerusalem.”
21Jesus
declared, “Believe me, woman, 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 spirit and truth, for
they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24God
is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in 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 who
speak to you am he.”