1   A report now reached the Pharisees: ‘Jesus is winning and baptizing more disciples than John’; 2   although, in fact, it was only the disciples who were baptizing and not Jesus himself. When Jesus learned this, 3   he left Judaea and set out once more for Galilee. 4    5   He had to pass through Samaria, and on his way came to a Samaritan town called Sychar, near the plot of ground which Jacob gave to his son Joseph and the spring called Jacob's well. 6   It was about noon, and Jesus, tired after his journey, sat down by the well.

7    8   The disciples had gone away to the town to buy food. Meanwhile a Samaritan woman came to draw water. Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink.’ 9   The Samaritan woman said, ‘What! You, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a Samaritan woman?’ (Jews and Samaritans, it should be noted, do not use vessels in common. ^note) 10   Jesus answered her, ‘If only

Christ the giver of life you knew what God gives, and who it is that is asking you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.’ 11   ‘Sir,’ the woman said, ‘you have no bucket and this well is deep. 12   How can you give me “living water”? Are you a greater man than Jacob our ancestor, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, he and his sons, and his cattle too?’ 13   Jesus said, ‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14   but whoever drinks the water that I shall give him will never suffer thirst any more. The water that I shall give him will be an inner spring always welling up for eternal life.’ 15   ‘Sir,’ said the woman, ‘give me that water, and then I shall not be thirsty, nor have to come all this way to draw.’

16   Jesus replied, ‘Go home, call your husband and come back.’ 17   She answered, ‘I have no husband.’ ‘You are right’, said Jesus, ‘in saying that you have no husband, 18   for, although you have had five husbands, the man with whom you are now living is not your husband; you told me the truth there.’ 19   ‘Sir,’ she replied, ‘I can see that you are a prophet. 20   Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews say that the temple where God should be worshipped is in Jerusalem.’ 21   ‘Believe me,’ said Jesus, ‘the time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem. 22   You Samaritans worship without knowing what you worship, while we worship what we know. It is from the Jews that salvation comes. 23   But the time approaches, indeed it is already here, when those who are real worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. Such are the worshippers whom the Father wants. 24   God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.’ 25   The woman answered, ‘I know that Messiah’ (that is Christ) ‘is coming. When he comes he will tell us everything.’ 26   Jesus said, ‘I am he, I who am speaking to you now.’

27   At that moment his disciples returned, and were astonished to find him talking with a woman; but none of them said, ‘What do you want?’ or, ‘Why are you talking with her?’ 28   The woman put down her water-jar and went away to the town, where she said to the people, 29   ‘Come and see a man who has told me everything I ever did. 30   Could this be the Messiah?’ They came out of the town and made their way towards him.

31   Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, ‘Rabbi, have something to eat.’ 32   But he said, ‘I have food to eat of which you know nothing.’ 33   At this the disciples said to one another, ‘Can someone have brought

Christ the giver of life him food?’ 34   But Jesus said, ‘It is meat and drink for me to do the will of him who sent me until I have finished his work.

35   ‘Do you not say, “Four months more and then comes harvest”? But look, I tell you, look round on the fields; they are already white, ripe for harvest. 36   The reaper is drawing his pay and gathering a crop for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37   That is how the saying comes true: “One sows, and another reaps.” 38   I sent you to reap a crop for which you have not toiled. Others toiled and you have come in for the harvest of their toil.’

39   Many Samaritans of that town came to believe in him because of the woman's testimony: ‘He told me everything I ever did.’ 40   So when these Samaritans had come to him they pressed him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. 41   Many more became believers because of what they heard from his own lips. 42   They told the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard him ourselves; and we know that this is in truth the Saviour of the world.’

43    44   When the two days were over he set out for Galilee; for Jesus himself declared that a prophet is without honour in his own country. 45   On his arrival in Galilee the Galileans gave him a welcome, because they had seen all that he did at the festival in Jerusalem; they had been at the festival themselves.

46   Once again he visited Cana-in-Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. An officer in the royal service was there, whose son was lying ill at Capernaum. 47   When he heard that Jesus had come from Judaea into Galilee, he came to him and begged him to go down and cure his son, who was at the point of death. 48   Jesus said to him, ‘Will none of you ever believe without seeing signs and portents?’ 49   The officer pleaded with him, ‘Sir, come down before my boy dies.’ 50   Then Jesus said, ‘Return home; your son will live.’ The man believed what Jesus said and started for home. 51   When he was on his way down his servants met him with the news, ‘Your boy is going to live.’ 52   So he asked them what time it was when he began to recover. 53   They said, ‘Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever left him.’ The father noted that this was the exact time when Jesus had said to him, ‘Your son will live’, and he and all his household became believers.

54   This was now the second sign which Jesus performed after coming down from Judaea into Galilee.

Christ the giver of life

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