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John 4 - Good News Bible bible

John 4

¹The Pharisees heard that Jesus was winning and baptizing more disciples than John.

²(Actually, Jesus himself did not baptize anyone; only his disciples did.)

³So when Jesus heard what was being said, he left Judea and went back to Galilee;

⁴on his way there he had to go through Samaria.

⁵In 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 trip, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

⁷A 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.)

⁹The 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.)

¹⁰Jesus answered, "If you only 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 don't have 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 children and his flocks all drank from it. You don't claim to be greater than Jacob, do you?"

¹³Jesus answered, "Those who drink this water will get thirsty again,

¹⁴but those who drink the water that I will give them will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give them will become in them a spring which will provide them with life-giving water and give them 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 don't have a husband," she answered. Jesus replied, "You are right when you say you don't have 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 worshiped God on this mountain, but you Jews say that Jerusalem is the place where we should worship God."

²¹Jesus 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."

²⁵The woman said to him, "I know that the Messiah will come, and when he comes, he will tell us everything."

²⁶Jesus answered, "I am he, I who am talking with you."

²⁷At 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?"

²⁸Then 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.

³¹In the meantime the disciples were begging Jesus, "Teacher, have something to eat!"

³²But he answered, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about."

³³So 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 the one who plants and the one who reaps will be glad together.

³⁷For the saying is true, 'Someone plants, someone else 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."

³⁹Many 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.

⁴¹Many more believed because of his message,

⁴²and they told 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 Savior of the world."

⁴³After spending two days there, Jesus left and went to Galilee.

⁴⁴For he himself had said, "Prophets are not respected in their own country."

⁴⁵When he arrived in Galilee, the people there welcomed him, because they had gone to the Passover Festival in Jerusalem and had seen everything that he had done during the festival.

⁴⁶Then Jesus went back to Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. A government official was there whose son was sick in Capernaum.

⁴⁷When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to go to Capernaum and heal his son, who was about to die.

⁴⁸Jesus said to him, "None of you will ever believe unless you see miracles and wonders."

⁴⁹"Sir,"replied the official, "come with me before my child dies."

⁵⁰Jesus said to him, "Go; your son will live!" The man believed Jesus' words and went.

⁵¹On his way home his servants met him with the news, "Your boy is going to live!"

⁵²He asked them what time it was when his son got better, and they answered, "It was one o'clock yesterday afternoon when the fever left him."

⁵³Then the father remembered that it was at that very hour when Jesus had told him, "Your son will live." So he and all his family believed.

⁵⁴This was the second miracle that Jesus performed after coming from Judea to Galilee.