1When the Lord found out that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more followers than John,
2(even though Jesus himself didn’t baptize anyone, only his disciples did),
3he left Judea and went back to Galilee.
4He had to travel through Samaria.
5So he arrived at a Samaritan town called Sychar, which was near the piece of land Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
6Jacob's well was there. Jesus, tired from his journey, sat down by the well. It was around noon.
7A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Please give me a drink.”
8His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.
9The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, are asking me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” (Jews don't associate with Samaritans.)
10Jesus answered her, “If you knew about God’s gift, and who it is asking you for a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
11The woman said to him, “Sir, you don’t have a bucket, and the well is deep. So where would you get this living water?
12Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well? He drank from it himself, and so did his children and his livestock.”
13Jesus replied, “Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again,
14but whoever drinks the water I will give them will never be thirsty again. The water I give them will become a spring of water inside them, flowing up to eternal life.”
15The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so I won’t get thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
16Jesus told her, “Go, call your husband, and come back here.”
17The woman answered, “I don’t have a husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right to say, ‘I don’t have a husband,’
18because you have had five husbands, and the man you are with now is not your husband. What you have said is true.”
19The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet.
20Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews say that Jerusalem is the place where people should worship.”
21Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, the time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
22You worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, because salvation comes from the Jews.
23But the time is coming, and is already here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For the Father is looking for people like that to worship him.
24God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
25The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one speaking to you.”
27Just then, his followers arrived. They were surprised that he was talking with a woman, but no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”
28So the woman left her water jar, went back to the town, and told the people,
29“Come, see a man who told me everything I’ve ever done! Could this be the Christ?”
30They left the town and started coming toward him.
31In the meantime, the followers urged him, saying, “Teacher, eat something.”
32But he told them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
33So the followers asked each other, “Did someone bring him something to eat?”
34Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work.
35Don’t you say, ‘There are still four months until harvest’? Look, I tell you, open your eyes and see the fields! They are ripe for harvest now.
36The one who harvests receives wages and gathers a crop for eternal life, so that both the one who sows and the one who harvests may rejoice together.
37For the saying is true: ‘One person sows, and another harvests.’
38I sent you to harvest what you did not work for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”
39Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I’ve ever done.”
40So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they asked him to stay with them. He stayed there for two days.
41Many more people believed in him because of his message.
42They told the woman, "We no longer believe just because of what you said. We have heard him ourselves and know that this man really is the Savior of the world."
43After two days, Jesus left there and went to Galilee.
44Jesus himself had said that a prophet is not honored in his own hometown.
45So when he arrived in Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him. They had seen everything he did in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, because they had also gone to the festival.
46Jesus then returned to Cana in Galilee, where he had turned water into wine. There was a government official there whose son was sick in Capernaum.
47When this official heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and begged him to come down and heal his son, because his son was close to death.
48Jesus told him, "You people will never believe unless you see miraculous signs and wonders."
49The official pleaded with him, "Sir, please come before my child dies!"
50Jesus told him, "Go. Your son will live." The man believed what Jesus told him and started on his way.
51As he was going down the road, his servants met him and told him, "Your son is alive!"
52He asked them what time his son had started to get better. They told him, "Yesterday, about one in the afternoon, the fever left him."
53Then the father realized that it was at that exact time Jesus had told him, "Your son will live." So he and everyone in his household believed.
54This was the second miraculous sign Jesus performed after coming from Judea to Galilee.