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Gospel Reading - Living Water at the Well

⁴He had to go through Samaria on the way, ^5-6and around noon as he approached the village of Sychar, he came to Jacob’s Well, located on the parcel of ground Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jesus was tired from the long walk in the hot sun and sat wearily beside the well.

⁷Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus asked her for a drink. ⁸He was alone at the time as his disciples had gone into the village to buy some food. ⁹The woman was surprised that a Jew would ask a “despised Samaritan” for anything — usually they wouldn’t even speak to them! — and she remarked about this to Jesus.

¹⁰He replied, “If you only knew what a wonderful gift God has for you, and who I am, you would ask me for some living water!”

¹¹“But you don’t have a rope or a bucket,” she said, “and this is a very deep well! Where would you get this living water? ¹²And besides, are you greater than our ancestor Jacob? How can you offer better water than this which he and his sons and cattle enjoyed?”

¹³Jesus replied that people soon became thirsty again after drinking this water. ¹⁴ “But the water I give them,” he said, “becomes a perpetual spring within them, watering them forever with eternal life.”

¹⁵“Please, sir,” the woman said, “give me some of that water! Then I’ll never be thirsty again and won’t have to make this long trip out here every day.”

¹⁶“Go and get your husband,” Jesus told her.

^17-18“But I’m not married,” the woman replied.

“All too true!” Jesus said. “For you have had five husbands, and you aren’t even married to the man you’re living with now.”

¹⁹“Sir,” the woman said, “you must be a prophet. ²⁰But say, tell me, why is it that you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place of worship, while we Samaritans claim it is here at Mount Gerizim,^a where our ancestors worshiped?”

^21-24Jesus replied, “The time is coming, ma’am, when we will no longer be concerned about whether to worship the Father here or in Jerusalem. For it’s not where we worship that counts, but how we worship — is our worship spiritual and real? Do we have the Holy Spirit’s help? For God is Spirit, and we must have his help to worship as we should. The Father wants this kind of worship from us. But you Samaritans know so little about him, worshiping blindly, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes to the world through the Jews.”

²⁵The woman said, “Well, at least I know that the Messiah will come — the one they call Christ — and when he does, he will explain everything to us.”

²⁶Then Jesus told her, “I am the Messiah!”

²⁷Just then his disciples arrived. They were surprised to find him talking to a woman, but none of them asked him why, or what they had been discussing.

^28-29Then the woman left her waterpot beside the well and went back to the village and told everyone, “Come and meet a man who told me everything I ever did! Can this be the Messiah?” ³⁰So the people came streaming from the village to see him.

³¹Meanwhile, the disciples were urging Jesus to eat. ³²“No,” he said, “I have some food you don’t know about.”

³³“Who brought it to him?” the disciples asked each other.

³⁴Then Jesus explained: “My nourishment comes from doing the will of God who sent me, and from finishing his work. ³⁵Do you think the work of harvesting will not begin until the summer ends four months from now? Look around you! Vast fields of human souls are ripening all around us, and are ready now for reaping. ³⁶The reapers will be paid good wages and will be gathering eternal souls into the granaries of heaven! What joys await the sower and the reaper, both together! ³⁷For it is true that one sows and someone else reaps. ³⁸I sent you to reap where you didn’t sow; others did the work, and you received the harvest.”

³⁹Many from the Samaritan village believed he was the Messiah because of the woman’s report: “He told me everything I ever did!” ^40-41When they came out to see him at the well, they begged him to stay at their village; and he did, for two days, long enough for many of them to believe in him after hearing him. ⁴² Then they said to the woman, “Now we believe because we have heard him ourselves, not just because of what you told us. He is indeed the Savior of the world.”

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