to buy food.)



The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink

of me who am a Samaritan?" for the Jews have nothing to do with

Samaritans. 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." The woman said to him, "Sir, you

have nothing with which to draw and the well is deep; where then do you

get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us

the well and himself drank from it, together with his children and his

cattle?" Jesus answered her, "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst

again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give shall never

thirst. The water that I give him will become in him a well of water

springing up into eternal life." The woman said to him, "Sir, give me

this water, that I may not thirst again nor have to come here to draw."



Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, then come back here." The

woman answered, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right

in saying, 'I have no husband,' for you have had five husbands, and he

whom you now have is not your husband; in saying that, you spoke the

truth."



The woman said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our fathers

worshipped in this mountain; and you Jews say that Jerusalem is the

place where men ought to worship." Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe

me, the time will come when you will worship the Father neither on this

mountain nor at Jerusalem. The time is coming, yes, has already come,

when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in

truth; for such worshippers the Father seeks. God is a spirit, and they

who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." The woman said

to him, "I know that the Messiah (which means Christ) is coming. When

he comes he will explain all things to us." Jesus said to her, "I who am

talking to you am he."



At this point the disciples came up and were astonished that he was

talking with a woman; but none of them said, "What do you want?" or,

"Why are you talking to her?"



Then the woman left her water-pot and going into the city said to the

men, "Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Is not this the

Messiah?" And they set out from the town on their way to him.



Meanwhile Jesus' disciples urged him, saying, "Master, take some food";

but he said to them, "I have food to eat of which you know not." So they

said to one another, "Has any one brought him something to eat?" Jesus

said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to carry

out his work. Do not say, 'Four months and then comes the harvest'; I

say to you, lift up your eyes and see these fields white for the

harvest! Already the reaper is receiving his wages and gathering in a

crop for eternal life, that the sower and reaper may rejoice together.

For here the proverb holds true, 'One sows and another reaps.' I sent

you to reap a harvest for which you had not toiled; other men have

toiled and you are sharing the results of their toil."



Because of the words of the woman who had said, "He told me everything

that I ever did," many Samaritans from the town believed in Jesus; and

when they came to him, they begged him to stay with them. And he stayed

there two days, and many more believed because of what he himself said.

To the woman they said, "Now we believe, not because of your words but

because we have heard for ourselves and know that this is indeed the

Saviour of the world."