John 4 - Lexham English Bible (LEB)

The Samaritan Woman at Jacob’s Well

4 Now when Jesus knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John ² (although Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples), ³ he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. ⁴ And it was necessary for him to go through Samaria.

⁵ Now he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the piece of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ And Jacob’s well was there, so Jesus, because he had become tired from the journey, simply sat down at the well. It was about the sixth hour.

⁷ A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me water^[a] to drink.” ⁸ (For his disciples had gone away into the town so that they could buy food.) ⁹ So the Samaritan woman said to him, “How do you, being a Jew, ask from me water^[b] to drink, since I^[c] am a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)

¹⁰ Jesus answered and said to her, “If you had known the gift of God and who it is who says to you, ‘Give me water^[d] to drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” ¹¹ The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket and the well is deep! From where then do you get this living water? ¹² You are not greater than our father Jacob, are you,^[e] who gave us the well and drank from it himself, and his sons and his livestock?”

¹³ Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again. ¹⁴ But whoever drinks of this water which I will give to him will never be thirsty for eternity, but the water which I will give to him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” ¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or come here to draw water!”^{[f] 16} He said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.” ¹⁷ The woman answered and said to him, “I do not have a husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have said rightly, ‘I do not have a husband,’ ¹⁸ for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you have now is not your husband; this you have said truthfully!”

¹⁹ The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you people^[g] say that in Jerusalem is the place where it is necessary to worship.” ²¹ Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, that an 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 worship what we know, because salvation is from the Jews. ²³ But an hour is coming—and now is here^[h]—when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for indeed the Father seeks such people to be his worshipers. ²⁴ God is spirit, and the ones who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” ²⁵ The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (the one called Christ); “whenever that one comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” ²⁶ Jesus said to her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.^[i]

The Disciples and the Harvest

²⁷ And at this point^[j] his disciples came, and they were astonished that he was speaking with a woman. However, no one said, “What do you seek?” or “Why are you speaking with her?” ²⁸ So the woman left her water jar and went away into the town and said to the people,^{[k] 29} “Come, see a man who told me everything I have ever done! Perhaps this one is the Christ?” ³⁰ They went out from the town and were coming to him.

³¹ In the meanwhile the disciples were asking him, saying, “Rabbi, eat something!”^{[l] 32} But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” ³³ So the disciples began to say^[m] to one another, “No one brought him anything^[n] to eat, did they?”^{[o] 34} Jesus said to them, “My food is that I do the will of the one who sent me and complete his work. ³⁵ Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months and the harvest comes’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, that they are white for harvest already.^{[p] 36} The one who reaps receives wages and gathers fruit for eternal life, in order that the one who sows and the one who reaps can rejoice together. ³⁷ For in this instance^[q] the saying is true, ‘It is one who sows and another who reaps.’ ³⁸ I sent you to reap what you did not work for; others have worked, and you have entered into their work.”

The Samaritans and the Savior of the World

³⁹ Now from that town many of the Samaritans believed in him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me everything that I have done.” ⁴⁰ So when the Samaritans came to him, they began asking^[r] him to stay with them. And he stayed there two days. ⁴¹ And many more believed because of his word, ⁴² And they were saying to the woman, “No longer because of what you said^[s] do we believe, for we ourselves have heard, and we know that this one is truly the Savior of the world!”

Return to Galilee

⁴³ And after the two days he departed from there into Galilee. ⁴⁴ For Jesus himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own homeland. ⁴⁵ So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, because they^[t] had seen all the things he had done in Jerusalem at the feast (for they themselves had also come to the feast).

A Royal Official’s Son Is Healed

⁴⁶ Now he came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. And there was at Capernaum a certain royal official whose son was sick. ⁴⁷ This man, when he^[u] heard that Jesus had come from Judea into Galilee, went to him and asked that he come down and heal his son, for he was about to die. ⁴⁸ So Jesus said to him, “Unless you people^[v] see signs and wonders, you will never believe!” ⁴⁹ The royal official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies!” ⁵⁰ Jesus said to him, “Go, your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he departed.

⁵¹ Now as^[w] he was going down, his slaves met him, saying that his child was alive. ⁵² So he inquired from them the hour at which he had gotten better. Then they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” ⁵³ So the father knew that it was that^[x] same hour at which Jesus said to him, “Your son will live,” and he himself believed, and his whole household. ⁵⁴ Now this is again a second sign Jesus performed when he^[y] came from Judea into Galilee.

Footnotes

1. John 4:7 Here “water” is supplied in the translation as the understood direct object of the verb “give”
2. John 4:9 Here “water” is supplied in the translation as the understood direct object of the verb “ask”
3. John 4:9 Here “since” is supplied as a component of the participle (“am”) which is understood as causal
4. John 4:10 Here “water” is supplied in the translation as the understood direct object of the verb “give”
5. John 4:12 *The negative construction in Greek anticipates a negative answer here, indicated by the supplied phrase “are you” in the translation
6. John 4:15 *Here the direct object is supplied from context in the English translation
7. John 4:20 Here “people” is supplied in the translation because the Greek pronoun is plural
8. John 4:23 The word “here” is not in the Greek text but is implied
9. John 4:26 *Here the predicate nominative is supplied from context in the English translation
10. John 4:27 The word “point” is not in the Greek text but is implied
11. John 4:28 Assuming the term is used here in a generic sense to refer to persons of either gender, it should be translated “people”; if instead the term here refers only to the town leaders or elders who met at the town gate, then “men” would be appropriate
12. John 4:31 *Here the direct object is supplied from context in the English translation
13. John 4:33 The imperfect tense has been translated as ingressive here (“began to say”)
14. John 4:33 Here the direct object is supplied from context in the English translation
15. John 4:33 *The negative construction in Greek anticipates a negative answer here, indicated by the supplied phrase “did they” in the translation
16. John 4:35 Some interpreters and Bible translations place the word “already” at the beginning of the next verse: “Already the one who reaps receives wages …”
17. John 4:37 The word “point” is not in the Greek text but is implied
18. John 4:40 The imperfect tense has been translated as ingressive here (“began asking”)
19. John 4:42 Literally “your speaking”
20. John 4:45 Here “because” is supplied as a component of the participle (“had seen”) which is understood as causal
21. John 4:47 Here “when” is supplied as a component of the participle (“heard”) which is understood as temporal
22. John 4:48 Here “people” is supplied in the translation because the Greek verb (“see”) is plural
23. John 4:51 Here “as” is supplied as a component of the temporal genitive absolute participle (“was going down”)
24. John 4:53 Some manuscripts have “that it was at that same hour”
25. John 4:54 Here “when” is supplied as a component of the participle (“came”) which is understood as temporal