Jesus was leaving Judea for Galilee and passed through Samaria. Near the Samaritan town of Sychar stood land associated with Jacob and a well called Jacob’s well. Tired from the journey, Jesus sat beside it at about noon.
A Samaritan woman came to draw water. Jesus asked her for a drink while his disciples were in town buying food. She asked how a Jewish man could ask a Samaritan woman for water, since Jews and Samaritans did not associate closely.
Jesus said that if she knew God’s gift and who was asking, she would have asked him and he would have given her living water. She pointed out that he had no bucket and that the well was deep. She asked whether he was greater than Jacob, who had given them the well.
Jesus replied that anyone who drank that water would be thirsty again, but whoever drank the water he gave would never be thirsty in the same way. It would become within that person a spring welling up to eternal life. She asked for that water so that she would not be thirsty or keep coming to draw from the well.
Jesus told her to call her husband. When she said she had no husband, he told her that she had spoken truly: she had had five husbands, and the man with whom she now lived was not her husband. She recognized him as a prophet and asked about the dispute over the proper place of worship.
Jesus said that the time was coming when worship would not be settled by that mountain or Jerusalem. True worshipers would worship the Father in spirit and truth, for God is spirit and seeks such worshipers. The woman said she knew that the Messiah would come and explain everything. Jesus told her that he, the one speaking with her, was that person.
At first the woman had addressed Jesus as a Jewish stranger without a bucket. As the conversation continued, she asked whether he was greater than Jacob and then called him a prophet when he spoke truthfully about her life. When she finally spoke of the coming Messiah, Jesus did not point her toward someone else. He identified himself as the one already speaking with her.
The disciples returned and were surprised to find Jesus speaking with her, though none asked why. The woman left her water jar, went back to the town, and told people to come see a man who had told her everything she had done. She asked whether he could be the Christ.
The townspeople came to Jesus and asked him to stay. He remained there two days, and many more believed because of his word. They told the woman that they now believed not only because of her report but because they had heard him themselves and knew that he truly was the Savior of the world.