<h3>JESUS TALKS WITH A SAMARITAN WOMAN</h3>
<p>When Jesus left Judea and went back into Galilee, he had to pass
through Samaria; and he came to a city of Samaria called Sychar,
near the piece of ground that Jacob gave his son Joseph. Now
Jacob's well was there. Jesus, therefore, being wearied by the journey,
sat down by the well. It was about noon and a woman of Samaria
came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink."
(For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.)</p>
<p>The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew,
ask a drink of me who am a Samaritan?" for the Jews have nothing
to do with Samaritans. Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift
of God and who it is who says to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would
have asked him and he would have given you living water." The
woman said to him, "Sir, you have nothing with which to draw and
the well is deep; where then do you get that living water? Are you
greater than our father Jacob who gave us the well and himself drank
from it, together with his children and his cattle?" Jesus answered
her, "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever
drinks of the water that I will give shall never thirst. The water
that I give him will become in him a well of water springing up into
eternal life." The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water,
that I may not thirst again nor have to come here to draw."</p>
<p>Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, then come back here."
The woman answered, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her,
"You are right in saying, 'I have no husband,' for you have had
five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband;
in saying that, you spoke the truth."</p>
<p>The woman said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our
fathers worshipped in this mountain; and you Jews say that Jerusalem
is the place where men ought to worship." Jesus said to her,
"Woman, believe me, the time will come when you will worship
the Father neither on this mountain nor at Jerusalem. The time is
coming, yes, has already come, when the true worshippers will worship
the Father in spirit and in truth; for such worshippers the
Father seeks. God is a spirit, and they who worship him must worship
him in spirit and in truth." The woman said to him, "I know
that the Messiah (which means Christ) is coming. When he comes
he will explain all things to us." Jesus said to her, "I who am talking
to you am he."<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>At this point the disciples came up and were astonished that
he was talking with a woman; but none of them said, "What do
you want?" or, "Why are you talking to her?"</p>
<p>Then the woman left her water-pot and going into the city said
to the men, "Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Is
not this the Messiah?" And they set out from the town on their
way to him.</p>
<p>Meanwhile Jesus' disciples urged him, saying, "Master, take
some food"; but he said to them, "I have food to eat of which you
know not." So they said to one another, "Has any one brought
him something to eat?" Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the
will of him who sent me and to carry out his work. Do not
say, 'Four months and then comes the harvest'; I say to you, lift
up your eyes and see these fields white for the harvest! Already the
reaper is receiving his wages and gathering in a crop for eternal life,
that the sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the
proverb holds true, 'One sows and another reaps.' I sent you to
reap a harvest for which you had not toiled; other men have toiled
and you are sharing the results of their toil."</p>
<p>Because of the words of the woman who had said, "He told me
everything that I ever did," many Samaritans from the town believed
in Jesus; and when they came to him, they begged him to
stay with them. And he stayed there two days, and many more
believed because of what he himself said. To the woman they said,
"Now we believe, not because of your words but because we have
heard for ourselves and know that this is indeed the Saviour of the
world."</p>
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