Read John 4:5-42
5 In
Samaria he came to a town named Sychar, which was not far from the field that
Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was there, and
Jesus, tired out by the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.
7 A
Samaritan woman came to draw some water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a
drink of water.” 8(His disciples had gone into town to buy food.)
9 The woman
answered, “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan—so how can you ask me for a
drink?” (Jews will not use the same cups and bowls that Samaritans use.)h
10 Jesus
answered, “If only you knew what God gives and who it is that is asking you for
a drink, you would ask him, and he would give you life-giving water.”
11 “Sir,”
the woman said, “you haven’t got a bucket, and the well is deep. Where would
you get that life-giving water? 12It was our ancestor Jacob who gave
us this well; he and his sons and his flocks all drank from it. You don’t claim
to be greater than Jacob, do you?”
13 Jesus
answered, “All those who drink this water will be thirsty again, 14but
whoever drinks the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The
water that I will give him will become in him a spring which will provide him
with life-giving water and give him eternal life.”
15 “Sir,”
the woman said, “give me that water! Then I will never be thirsty again, nor
will I have to come here to draw water.” 16“Go and call your husband,”
Jesus told her, “and come back.”
17 “I
haven’t got a husband,” she answered.
Jesus
replied, “You are right when you say you haven’t got a husband. 18You
have been married to five men, and the man you live with now is not really your
husband. You have told me the truth.”
19 “I
see you are a prophet, sir,” the woman said. 20“My Samaritan
ancestors worshipped God on this mountain, but you Jews say that Jerusalem is
the place where we should worship God.”
21 Jesus
said to her, “Believe me, woman, the time will come when people will not
worship the Father either on this mountain or in Jerusalem. 22You
Samaritans do not really know whom you worship; but we Jews know whom we
worship, because it is from the Jews that salvation comes. 23But the
time is coming and is already here, when by the power of God’s Spirit people
will worship the Father as he really is, offering him the true worship that he
wants. 24God is Spirit, and only by the power of his Spirit can
people worship him as he really is.”
25 The
woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah will come, and when he comes, he
will tell us everything.”
26 Jesus
answered, “I am he, I who am talking with you.”
27 At
that moment Jesus’ disciples returned, and they were greatly surprised to find
him talking with a woman. But none of them said to her, “What do you want?” or
asked him, “Why are you talking with her?”
28 Then
the woman left her water jar, went back to the town, and said to the people
there, 29“Come and see the man who told me everything I have ever
done. Could he be the Messiah?” 30So they left the town and went to
Jesus.
31 In
the meantime the disciples were begging Jesus, “Teacher, have something to
eat!”
32 But
he answered, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
33 So
the disciples started asking among themselves, “Could somebody have brought him
food?”
34 “My
food,” Jesus said to them, “is to obey the will of the one who sent me and to
finish the work he gave me to do. 35You have a saying, ‘Four more
months and then the harvest.’ But I tell you, take a good look at the fields;
the crops are now ripe and ready to be harvested! 36The one who
reaps the harvest is being paid and gathers the crops for eternal life; so
another who sows and the one who reaps will be glad together. 37The
saying is true, ‘One sows, another reaps.’ 38I have sent you to reap
a harvest in a field where you did not work; others worked there, and you
profit from their work.”
39 Many
of the Samaritans in that town believed in Jesus because the woman had said,
“He told me everything I have ever done.” 40So when the Samaritans
came to him, they begged him to stay with them, and Jesus stayed there two
days.
41 Many
more believed because of his message, 42and they said to the woman,
“We believe now, not because of what you said, but because we ourselves have
heard him, and we know that he really is the Saviour of the world.”
Think
This passage is such a
beautiful encounter. Jesus who reaches
out to someone who is usually rejected and tells her of God’s grace and
love. She can’t resist telling others
what she has found out.
We are called to imitate
Jesus.
Do we share his love in the
way we treat and speak with others.
Pray
Lord, guard my conversations
today; help me to listen and to speak as you listen and speak. Help me to share the living water that you
have given me with everyone I meet.
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