Bible Gateway passage: John 4:1-26 - New International Version (2024)

Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman

4Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John^(A)— ²although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. ³So he left Judea^(B) and went back once more to Galilee.

⁴Now he had to go through Samaria.^{(C) 5}So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.^{(D) 6}Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

⁷When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”^{(E) 8}(His disciples had gone into the town^(F) to buy food.)

⁹The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan^(G) woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.^[a])

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.”^(H)

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^(I) and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

¹³Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.^(J) Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water^(K) welling up to eternal life.”^(L)

¹⁵The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty^(M) 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.^{(N) 20}Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain,^(O) but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”^(P)

²¹“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming^(Q) when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.^{(R) 22}You Samaritans worship what you do not know;^(S) we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.^{(T) 23}Yet a time is coming and has now come^(U) when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit^(V) and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. ²⁴God is spirit,^(W) and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

²⁵The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ)^(X) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

²⁶Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”^(Y)

Footnotes

1. John 4:9 Or do not use dishes Samaritans have used

Cross references

1. John 4:1 : Jn 3:22, 26
2. John 4:3 : Jn 3:22
3. John 4:4 : S Mt 10:5
4. John 4:5 : Ge 33:19; Jos 24:32
5. John 4:7 : Ge 24:17; 1Ki 17:10
6. John 4:8 : ver 5, 39
7. John 4:9 : S Mt 10:5
8. John 4:10 : Isa 44:3; 55:1; Jer 2:13; 17:13; Zec 14:8; Jn 7:37, 38; Rev 7:17; 21:6; 22:1, 17
9. John 4:12 : ver 6
10. John 4:14 : Jn 6:35
11. John 4:14 : Isa 12:3; 58:11; Jn 7:38
12. John 4:14 : S Mt 25:46
13. John 4:15 : Jn 6:34
14. John 4:19 : S Mt 21:11
15. John 4:20 : Dt 11:29; Jos 8:33
16. John 4:20 : Lk 9:53
17. John 4:21 : Jn 5:28; 16:2
18. John 4:21 : Mal 1:11; 1Ti 2:8
19. John 4:22 : 2Ki 17:28-41
20. John 4:22 : Isa 2:3; Ro 3:1, 2; 9:4, 5; 15:8, 9
21. John 4:23 : Jn 5:25; 16:32
22. John 4:23 : Php 3:3
23. John 4:24 : Php 3:3
24. John 4:25 : Mt 1:16; Jn 1:41
25. John 4:26 : Jn 8:24; 9:35-37