Jesus Meets a Samaritan Woman

4 Now when Jesus^[a] realized that the Pharisees had heard he was making and baptizing more disciples than John— 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. ⁶ Jacob’s Well was also there, and Jesus, tired out by the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.^[b]

³¹ Meanwhile, the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi,^[a] have something to eat.”

³² But he told 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, have they?”

³⁴ Jesus told them, “My food is doing the will of the one who sent me and completing his work. ³⁵ You say, don’t you, ‘In four more months the harvest will begin?’ Look, I tell you, open your eyes and observe that the fields are ready^[b] for harvesting now! 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. ³⁷ In this respect the saying is true: ‘One person sows, and another person harvests.’^{[c] 38} I have sent you to harvest what you have not worked for. Others have worked, and you have adopted their work as your own.”