Yeshua Offers Living Water
4 Now Yeshua knew that the Pharisees heard that He was making and immersing more disciples than John. 2 (Although Yeshua Himself was not immersing, His disciples were.) 3 So He left Judea and went back again to the Galilee.
4 But He needed to pass through Samaria. 5 So He comes to a Samaritan town called Shechem, near the plot of land that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. [a] 6 Now Jacob’s well was there. So Yeshua, exhausted from the journey, was sitting by the well. It was midday.[b]
7 A Samaritan woman comes to draw water. “Give me a drink,” Yeshua tells her, 8 for His disciples had gone away to the town to buy food.
9 Then the Samaritan woman tells Him, “How is it that You, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” (For Jewish people don’t deal with Samaritans.)
10 Yeshua replied to 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 “Sir,” the woman tells Him, “You don’t have a bucket, and the well is deep. Then from where do You get this living water? 12 You’re not greater than our father Jacob, are You? He gave us this well. He drank out of it himself, with his sons and his cattle.”
13 Yeshua replied to her, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. 14 But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never be thirsty. The water that I give him will become a fountain of water within him, springing up to eternal life!”
15 “Sir,” the woman tells Him, “give me this water, so I won’t get thirsty or have to come all the way here to draw water!”
16 He tells her, “Go call your husband, and then come back here.”
17 “I don’t have a husband,” the woman replied.
Yeshua tells her, “You’ve said it right, ‘I have no husband.’ 18 For you’ve had five husbands, and the man you have now isn’t your husband. This you’ve spoken truthfully!”
19 “Sir,” the woman tells Him, “I see that You are a prophet! 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you all say that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
21 Yeshua tells her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But an hour is coming—it is here now—when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people as His worshipers. 24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
25 The woman tells Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called the Anointed One.)[c] When He comes, He will explain everything to us.”
26 Yeshua tells her, “I—the One speaking to you—I am.”
Ready for Harvest
27 At this moment, His disciples came back. They were amazed that He was speaking with a woman. Yet no one said, “What do You want?” or “Why are You speaking with her?”
28 So the woman left her water jar and went back to the town. She tells the people, 29 “Come see a man who told me everything I ever did! He couldn’t be the Messiah, could He?” 30 The people left the town and began coming to Him.
31 Meanwhile, the disciples were pressing Him, “Rabbi, eat!”
32 But He said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
33 So the disciples were saying to each other, “No one brought Him food to eat, did they?”
34 Yeshua tells them, “My food is to do the will of the One who sent Me and to accomplish His work. 35 Don’t you say, ‘Four more months, and then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields! They are white and ready for harvest.
36 “The reaper receives a reward and gathers fruit for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For the saying is true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap what you haven’t worked for. Others have worked hard, and you have joined in their work.”
39 Many of the Samaritans from that town put their trust in Him because of the word of the woman testifying, “He told me everything I ever did!” 40 So when the Samaritans came to Him, they kept asking Him to stay with them. He stayed there two days, 41 and many more believed because of His word. 42 They kept telling the woman, “It’s no longer because of your words that we believe. We’ve heard for ourselves! Now we know that this really is the Savior of the world!”
Life for a Dying Son
43 After the two days, He went on from there into the Galilee. 44 Now Yeshua Himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country. 45 But when He came into the Galilee, they welcomed Him. For they had seen all He had done at the feast in Jerusalem, since they also had gone up to celebrate.
46 So He went again to Cana of the Galilee, where He had turned the water into wine. Now there was a nobleman whose son was sick in Capernaum. 47 When he heard that Yeshua had come from Judea to the Galilee, he went to Him and begged Him to come down and heal his son; for he was about to die.
48 Then Yeshua said to him, “Unless you all see signs and wonders, you’ll never believe!”
49 The nobleman said to Him, “Sir, come down before my child dies!”
50 Yeshua tells him, “Go! Your son lives!”
The man believed the word that Yeshua said to him and started off. 51 While on his way down, his servants met him, saying that his son was living. 52 So he asked them the hour when the boy began to get better. They said, “The fever left him yesterday at about the seventh hour.”[d]
53 Then the father realized that it was the same hour Yeshua said to him, “Your son lives!” Now he himself believed, along with his whole household. 54 Yeshua did this as the second sign, after He had come again from Judea into the Galilee.
Footnotes
- John 4:6 Most mss. say Sychar; cf. Gen. 33:18-19; 48:22(48:22 LXX); Josh. 24:32.
- John 4:6 Lit. about the sixth hour.
- John 4:25 Christ (Gk.) and Messiah (Heb.) both mean Anointed One.
- John 4:52 One o’clock.