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The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John,

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although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples.

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When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.

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Now he had to go through Samaria.

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So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.

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Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

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When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?"

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(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

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The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. )

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Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."

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"Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?

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Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"

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Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,

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but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

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The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."

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He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back."

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"I have no husband," she replied. Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband.

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The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true."

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"Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet.

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Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."

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Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.

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You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.

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Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.

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God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."

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The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."

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Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he."

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Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, "What do you want?" or "Why are you talking with her?"

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Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people,

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"Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ ?"

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They came out of the town and made their way toward him.

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Meanwhile his disciples urged him, "Rabbi, eat something."

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But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about."

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Then his disciples said to each other, "Could someone have brought him food?"

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"My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.

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Do you not say, `Four months more and then the harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.

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Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together.

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Thus the saying `One sows and another reaps' is true.

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I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labour."

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Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I ever did."

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So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days.

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And because of his words many more became believers.

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They said to the woman, "We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Saviour of the world."

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After the two days he left for Galilee.

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(Now Jesus himself had pointed out that a prophet has no honour in his own country.)

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When he arrived in Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him. They had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, for they also had been there.

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Once more he visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum.

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When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death.

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"Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders," Jesus told him, "you will never believe."

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The royal official said, "Sir, come down before my child dies."

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Jesus replied, "You may go. Your son will live." The man took Jesus at his word and departed.

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While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living.

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When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, "The fever left him yesterday at the seventh hour."

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Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, "Your son will live." So he and all his household believed.

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This was the second miraculous sign that Jesus performed, having come from Judea to Galilee.

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