John 4:5-26

New International Version

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

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

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

¹⁰ Jesus 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.”^(E)

¹¹ “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? ¹² Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well^(F) and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

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

¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty^(J) and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

¹⁶ He 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. ¹⁸ The 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.^{(K) 20} Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain,^(L) but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”^(M)

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

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

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