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1.
The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John,
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2.
although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples.
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3.
When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
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4.
Now he had to go through Samaria.
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5.
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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6.
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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7.
When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?"
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8.
(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
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9.
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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10.
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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11.
"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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12.
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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13.
Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,
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14.
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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15.
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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16.
He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back."
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17.
"I have no husband," she replied. Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband.
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18.
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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19.
"Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet.
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20.
Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."
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21.
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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22.
You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.
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23.
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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24.
God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."
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25.
The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."
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26.
Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he."
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27.
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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28.
Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people,
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29.
"Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?"
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30.
They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
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31.
Meanwhile his disciples urged him, "Rabbi, eat something."
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32.
But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about."
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33.
Then his disciples said to each other, "Could someone have brought him food?"
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34.
"My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.
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35.
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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36.
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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37.
Thus the saying 'One sows and another reaps' is true.
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38.
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 labor."
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39.
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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40.
So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days.
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41.
And because of his words many more became believers.
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42.
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 Savior of the world."
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43.
After the two days he left for Galilee.
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44.
(Now Jesus himself had pointed out that a prophet has no honor in his own country.)
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45.
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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46.
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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47.
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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48.
"Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders," Jesus told him, "you will never believe."
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49.
The royal official said, "Sir, come down before my child dies."
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50.
Jesus replied, "You may go. Your son will live." The man took Jesus at his word and departed.
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51.
While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living.
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52.
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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53.
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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54.
This was the second miraculous sign that Jesus performed, having come from Judea to Galilee.
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