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¹ Now when Jesus[fn] realized that the Pharisees had heard he was making and baptizing more disciples than John[xr] - ² although it was not Jesus who did the baptizing but his disciples - ³ he left Judea and went back to Galilee.

⁴ Now it was necessary for him to go through Samaria. ⁵ So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the piece of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.[xr] ⁶ Jacob's Well was also there, and Jesus, tired out by the journey, sat down by the well. It was about twelve noon.[fn] ⁷ A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Please give me a drink." ⁸ For his disciples had gone off into town to buy food. ⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, "How can you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?" For Jews do not have anything to do with Samaritans.[fn][xr] ¹⁰ Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who is saying to you, 'Please give me a drink,' you would have been the one to ask him, and he would have given you living water."[xr] ¹¹ The woman[fn] said to him, "Sir, you don't have a bucket, and the well is deep. Where are you going to get this living water? ¹² You're not greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it, along with his sons and his flocks, are you?" ¹³ Jesus answered her, "Everyone who drinks this water will become thirsty again. ¹⁴ But whoever drinks the water that I will give him will never become thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life."[xr] ¹⁵ The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I won't get thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water."[xr] ¹⁶ He said to her, "Go and call your husband, and come back here." ¹⁷ The woman answered him, "I don't have a husband." Jesus said to her, "You are quite right in saying, 'I don't have a husband.' ¹⁸ For you have had five husbands, and the man you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true." ¹⁹ The woman said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet![xr] ²⁰ Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain. But you Jews[fn] say that the place where people should worship is in Jerusalem."[xr] ²¹ Jesus said to her, "Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you Samaritans[fn] will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.[xr] ²² You don't know what you're worshiping. We know what we're worshiping, for salvation comes from the Jews.[xr] ²³ Yet the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit[fn] and truth. Indeed, the Father is looking for people like that to worship him.[xr] ²⁴ God is spirit,[fn] and those who worship him must worship in spirit[fn] and truth."[xr] ²⁵ The woman said to him, "I know that the Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When he comes, he will tell us everything."[xr] ²⁶ Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you."[xr]

²⁷ At this point his disciples arrived, and they were amazed that he was talking to a woman. Yet no one said, "What do you want from her?"[fn] or, "Why are you talking to her?" ²⁸ Then the woman left her water jar and went back to town. She told the people, ²⁹ "Come and see a man who told me everything I've ever done! Could he possibly be the Christ?"[fn][xr] ³⁰ The people[fn] left the town and started on their way to him. ³¹ Meanwhile, the disciples were urging him, "Rabbi[fn] , have something to eat." ³² But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about." ³³ So the disciples began to say to one another, "No one has brought him anything to eat, has he?" ³⁴ Jesus told them, "My food is doing the will of the one who sent me and completing his work.[xr] ³⁵ You say, don't you, 'In four more months the harvest will be here?' Look, I tell you, open your eyes and observe that the fields are ready[fn] for harvesting![xr] ³⁶ The one who harvests is already receiving his wages and gathering a crop for eternal life, so that the one who sows and the one who harvests may rejoice together.[xr] ³⁷ For in this respect the saying is true: 'One person sows, and another person harvests.'[fn] ³⁸ I have sent you to harvest what you have not labored for. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor." ³⁹ Now many of the Samaritans of that town believed in Jesus[fn] because of the woman's testimony when she testified, "He told me everything I've ever done."[xr] ⁴⁰ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there for two days. ⁴¹ And many more believed because of his word. ⁴² They kept telling the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard him ourselves, and we know that he really is the Savior of the world."[xr]

⁴³ Two days later, Jesus[fn] went from that place to Galilee. ⁴⁴ For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country.[xr] ⁴⁵ When he arrived in Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him because they had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem during the festival. For they, too, had gone to the festival.[xr] ⁴⁶ So he came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. Meanwhile, in Capernaum there was a government official whose son was ill.[xr] ⁴⁷ When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him repeatedly to come down and heal his son, for he was about to die. ⁴⁸ Jesus told him, "Unless you people[fn] see signs and wonders, you will never believe."[xr] ⁴⁹ The official said to him, "Sir,[fn] please come down before my little boy dies." ⁵⁰ Jesus said to him, "Go home. Your son will live." The man believed what Jesus told him and started on his way. ⁵¹ While he was on his way down, his servants met him and told him that his child[fn] was alive. ⁵² So he asked them at what hour he had begun to recover, and they told him, "The fever left him yesterday at one o'clock in the afternoon."[fn] ⁵³ Then the father realized that this was the very hour when Jesus had told him, "Your son will live." And he himself believed, along with his whole family. ⁵⁴ Now this was the second sign that Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee.