John 4
1 Later, when Jesus knew that the Pharisees had heard Jesus was traininga and submersing more students than John 2 (though Jesus was not submersing people himself; his students were), 3 he left Judea behindb and headed out again for Galilee. 4 But, he had to go through Samaria. 5 So, he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the place Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, so Jesus, who was tired from traveling, sat down at the well. The time was about noon.
7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water.
“Give me something to drink,” Jesus requested 8 (His students had gone into the town to buy food).
9 So the Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you—as a Jew—are requesting something to drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” (Jews did not use anything that was used by Samaritans).
10 “If you had understood God’s gift,” Jesus answered, “and who is saying to you, ‘Give me something to drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
11 “Sir,”c the woman said, “You don’t have a bucket, and the well is deep, so where are you getting the living water? 12 You aren’t more impressived than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself along with his sons and his livestock, are you?”
13 “Everyone who drinks from this water will be thirsty again,” Jesus responded. 14 “But whoever drinks from the water I will give them won’t be thirsty throughout the Age; instead, the water I will give them will come to be a spring of water gushing up toward agelong life.
15 “Sir, give me this water” the woman said to him, “so that I may neither be thirsty nor travel here to draw water!”
16 “Go,” he said to her, “Call your husband, and come back here.”
17 The woman answered, “I don’t have a husband.”
“You’re right when you said, ‘I don’t have a husband,’” Jesus said, 18 “because you’ve had five husbands, and the one you have now isn’t your husband. What you said is true.”
19 “Sir,” the woman said to him, “I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors bowed down on this mountain, and you all say that the place where it’s necessary to bow down is in Jerusalem.”
21 “Trust me, ma’am,”e Jesus told her, “A time is coming when youf will not bow down to the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. 22 You bow down to someone you haven’t known. We bow down to someone we have seen since liberation is from the Jews. 23 However, a time is coming—and it is now—when those who truly bow down will bow down to the Father with their life-breath and sincerity.g The people who bow down to him like that are the ones the Father is looking for. 24 God is Life-breath, and those who bow down to him have to bow down with their life-breath and sincerity.”
25 The woman said to him, “I know that Meshiah is coming (the one called Christ). Whenever he comes, he will explain it all to us.”
26 “The person speaking to you,” Jesus said, “I am the one.”
27 At that moment, his students arrived and were shocked that he was speaking with a woman. However, no one said, “What do you want,” or, “Why are you speaking with her?”
28 Then, the woman left her water jug behind and went off to the town and reported to the people, 29 “Come and see someone who told me everything I’ve experienced.h This isn’t the Christ, right?” 30 They left the town and began coming to him.
31 In the meantime, the students were requesting, “Rabbi, eat!”
32 “I have food to eat that you haven’t seen,” he said to them.
33 Then, the students began to say to each other, “No one brought him anything to eat, right?”
34 Jesus said to them, “The food for me is that I can do what the Life-breath wants for me and that I can finish his work. 35 Don’t you say that it’s still four months before the harvest comes? Look! I’m telling you, use your eyes and see that the fields are already ripei for harvest. 36 Whoever harvests and gathers the cropj for agelong life receives pay so that the one who plants and the one who harvests can celebrate together. 37 For in this, the sayingk is true, that one plants and another harvests. 38 I sent you to harvest what you didn’t tend. Others have tended it, and you have joinedl in their labor.”
39 Many of the Samaritans from that town placed their trust in him because of what the woman discussed,m who reported, “He told me about everything I’ve experienced.” 40 So, when the Samaritans got to where he was, they began to ask him to stayn with them, and he stayed there two days. 41 Many more trusted because of his conversation.o 42 They said to the woman as well, “We don’t trust him just because of what you said anymore since we’ve heard for ourselves and we’ve seen that this is truly the whole world’s liberator.”
43 After two days, he went from there to Galilee 44 (Jesus himself insisted that a prophet does not hold value in the place where they’re from.)p 45 So, when he arrived in Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him because they had seen everything he had done in Jerusalem during the festival (since they had gone to the festival too).
46 Then he went to Cana in Galilee again, where he had made the water into wine. Someone who worked for the king was there whose son in Capernaum was listless. 47 When this person heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Jerusalem, he traveled to him and pleaded that he go down and revive his son because he was about to die.
48 “Unless youq see signsr and miracles,s you won’t trust,” Jesus said to him.
49 “Sir,” the royal official said to him, “Come down before my child dies.”
50 “Go on,” Jesus told him, “Your son is alive.”
The person trusted what Jesus saidt to him and left. 51 While he was already on his way down, his enslaved workers met up with him to tell him that the child was alive. 52 Then, he asked them the time of when he had gotten better.
“The fever went away,”u they told him, “Yesterday, at one o’clock in the afternoon.”v 53 Then the father realized that it was at the exact time that Jesus said to him, “Your son is alive,” and he and his whole household trusted.
54 Jesus produced this second sign after coming back to Galilee from Judea.
FOOTNOTES:
a Literally, ‘making.’ ‘Initiating’ could be appropriate. Many versions translate it as ‘making’ but others also try to make it flow more naturally in English, including the by translating it as ‘winning’ (NET) and ‘gaining’ (NIV). Strangely, the NET reads ‘winning disciples’ here when the Greek is literally ‘making disciples’ but in Matthew 28:19, the NET says ‘making disciples’ when the Greek says something very literally like ‘disciplize all nations.’
b The Greek word aphiemi is the one often translated as ‘forgive’ or ‘divorce’ or ‘send away’ or ‘dismiss’ depending on context. It’s core meaning is to create distance.
c This is kurios, the same word translated as ‘lord’ in most places.
d Traditionally, ‘greater.’ Literally, ‘bigger.’ It was used to discuss physical size, but also age, importance, status, and power, as well as degrees such as ‘great effort.’
e Literally, the word means ‘woman.’ However, addressing a woman as ‘woman’ in our culture is considered rude, an attempt to put her in her place, especially when done by a man. In Jesus’ culture, it was done as a respectful way to address someone.
f The word ‘you’ is plural in all its instances in verses 21-24.
g Literally, ‘truth’
h Literally, ‘everything I’ve done.’ In English, that wording sounds like a judgment. There’s an implicit, ‘everything I’ve done wrong.’ The actual wording has no judgment and is just about the events, something more like ‘every event that I’ve engaged in.’
i Literally, ‘white’ which referred to the lighter color of ripe grain.
j Traditionally, ‘fruit,’ but it refers to whatever crops are harvested. In this case, grain seems to be in mind.
k The Greek is logos. See note in John 1:1. With the understanding that at the heart of the word is a sense of conversation, the statement indicated here is not meant to be the authoritative conclusion but rather the prompt to discuss the concepts in view. What someone says as they wrestle with wisdom does not end a conversation but opens it, inviting others to wrestle as well.
l This is the same word translated as ‘go into their mother’s womb’ in 3:4 and ‘participate in God’s reign’ in 3:5. The Greek word eiserchomai is traditionally translated as ‘enter.’ When it is used for physical travel, that is a good translation. It is a compound word for ‘into/toward’ and ‘come/go.’ However, it has other possible meanings that are more appropriate when it is not about travel: 1) to enter a state of being or event, meaning to start to be or participate in something happening, and 2) to happen or develop. Beginning to participate in something happening is the most appropriate way to translate it here.
m Literally, ‘because of the logos of the woman who reported…” See note about logos in John 1:1.
n Or ‘stay present’ or ‘reside’ or ‘remain’
o Greek: logos. See note in John 1:1.
p Literally, ‘fatherland.’ The idea is ‘region of origin.’ ‘Hometown’ works well in some instances, but this is about Galilee, which is the whole province, not just a town.
q This word is plural.
r ‘signs’ becomes a theme in John. It has more to do with evidence that Jesus can be trusted as representing God than with performing miracles. It is paired here with ‘miracles,’ not because they are synonyms but because they are two different things that people want to see in order to be willing to trust. Sometimes the signs are miraculous, like healing people, but other times it is that he predicted what kind of death he would die and that he died to be the people’s Bread of Life from God. They are all miraculous in the sense of being ‘from God’ but not in the way of being ‘magical.’
s Traditionally, ‘wonders.’ Perhaps ‘acts of magic’ or ‘acts of sorcery.’ The definition of teras is ‘something that astounds because of transcendent association’ (BDAG).
t Literally, “trusted the logos that Jesus spoke with him.” See note on logos in John 1:1.
u Literally, something like ‘left him.’ The word is aphiemi, the same word translated as ‘forgive’ or ‘send away’ or divorce’ or ‘dismiss’ or ‘disregard’ or ‘leave behind.’ It can be used in a number of ways to communicate the idea of creating separation or distance.
v Literally, ‘the seventh hour.’