1 When Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John— 2 although Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples were— 3 he left Judea and went back to Galilee. 4 He had to pass through Samaria. 5 So he came to a Samaritan town called Sychar, near the land Jacob had given his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there. Jesus, tired from the journey, sat down by the well just as he was. It was about noon.

7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is who says to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where, then, do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock?” 13 Jesus answered her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I will give him will never thirst. The water I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

16 He said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right to say, ‘I have no husband,’ 18 for you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that Jerusalem is the place where people must worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But an hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming, who is called Christ. When he comes, he will tell us everything.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one speaking to you.”

27 Just then his disciples arrived. They were amazed that he was speaking with a woman, yet no one said, “What do you want?” or “Why are you speaking with her?” 28 So the woman left her water jar, went into the town, and said to the people, 29 “Come and see a man who told me everything I have done. Could this be the Christ?” 30 They left the town and were coming to him.

31 Meanwhile, the disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” 33 So the disciples said to one another, “Has someone brought him something to eat?” 34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35 Do you not say, ‘There are still four months, and then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes and see the fields: they are already white for harvest. 36 The reaper receives wages and gathers fruit for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may rejoice together. 37 For in this the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have worked, and you have entered into their labor.”

39 Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony: “He told me everything I have done.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. 41 Many more believed because of his word, 42 and they said to the woman, “We no longer believe because of what you said, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this truly is the Savior of the world.”

43 After those two days, he left there for Galilee. 44 For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country. 45 When he arrived in Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having seen everything he had done in Jerusalem at the feast, for they too had gone to the feast.

46 So he came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. There was a royal official whose son was sick in Capernaum. 47 When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and pleaded with him to come down and heal his son, who was about to die. 48 Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders, you will never believe.” 49 The royal official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” 50 Jesus said to him, “Go; your son lives.” The man believed the word Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. 51 While he was going down, his slaves met him and told him that his child was alive. 52 He asked them what time he began to get better. They told him, “Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever left him.” 53 Then the father realized that this was the very hour when Jesus had told him, “Your son lives.” And he himself believed, along with his whole household. 54 This was the second sign Jesus performed after coming from Judea to Galilee.