Read the Modern Pastor’s Version

When the Lord learned that the Pharisees had heard about Jesus baptizing more disciples than John, he left Judea and headed back to Galilee.

He knew he needed to go through Samaria, so he journeyed on. As he came into a city in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of land Jacob had given to his son Joseph, Jesus was weary from his travel and sat down beside Jacob's well at about noon.

A woman from Samaria approached the well with her water jar, and Jesus said to her, "Would you give me a drink?" His disciples had gone into the city to buy food, so they weren't there to witness this conversation.

The woman of Samaria was surprised that a Jewish man would ask her for a drink since Jews generally avoided interacting with Samaritans. "How is it that you, being a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?" she asked.

Jesus replied, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." The woman was puzzled by Jesus' response. "Sir," she said, "you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep; from where then do you have that living water?"

Jesus answered her question by saying, "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again. But whoever drinks from the water I give will never thirst again; and the water that I give will become in them a spring of eternal life." The woman was intrigued by Jesus' words and asked him to give her that living water so she wouldn't have to come to the well again.

Jesus told her, "Go call your husband and come back here." But the woman replied, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You have spoken correctly; I see that you are not married. You have had five husbands, and the one you're with now is not your husband; in saying so, you speak the truth."

The woman was amazed by Jesus' knowledge of her situation and said, "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet." She went on to discuss the differences between their worship traditions, pointing out that their fathers had worshipped on Mount Gerizim while the Jews worshipped in Jerusalem.

Jesus responded by saying, "Woman, believe me, the time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, because salvation comes from the Jews." He went on to explain that the hour had come for true worshippers to worship the Father in spirit and truth.

God, Jesus said, is a Spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth. The woman then asked Jesus if he was the Messiah, saying that when he came, he would tell everyone everything. Jesus replied, "I am he who is speaking with you."

As Jesus finished talking to the Samaritan woman, his disciples arrived, astonished to see him conversing with her. They didn't ask him what he was doing or why he was speaking with her. The woman left her water jar and went into the city, saying to the men, "Come, see a man who has told me everything I ever did; is he not the Christ?"

The people of Sychar went out of the city to meet Jesus, and his disciples urged him to eat. But Jesus replied, "I have food to eat that you do not know about." His disciples looked at each other, wondering if someone had brought him something to eat.

Jesus explained, "My food is to do the will of the One who sent me and to complete his work." He then told them to lift up their eyes and look out at the fields, which were already ripe for harvest. Those who reaped the harvest would receive wages and gather fruit unto eternal life.

Jesus said that one person sows while another reaps, but he had sent them to reap where others had sown. Many of the Samaritans in Sychar believed in Jesus because of the woman's testimony and because they heard him themselves. They realized that he was indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.

After staying with the people of Sychar for two days, Jesus continued his journey into Galilee. But before he left, many more believed in him because of his own word.

As Jesus traveled on, some of the villagers from Nazareth asked him to stay with them, but he refused, knowing that a prophet has no honor in their hometown. So he passed through Cana in Galilee again, where he had previously turned water into wine.

In Cana, there was a nobleman whose son lay sick at Capernaum. When the nobleman heard that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to him and begged him to come down and heal his son before it was too late.

Jesus told the nobleman, "Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe." But the man replied, "Sir, come down before my child dies." Jesus said, "Go your way; your son lives," and the nobleman believed what he had been told.

As the nobleman was on his way home, he met some of his servants who told him that his son's fever had broken. The father asked them when this happened, and they replied that it occurred at the same hour Jesus had spoken to him.

The nobleman then realized that Jesus' words were true, and he believed in him along with his whole household. This was another miracle performed by Jesus as he continued his journey from Judea into Galilee.