21 Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. |
22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. |
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. |
24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." |
25 The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us." |
26 Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he." |
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?" |
28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, |
29 "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ2 4:29 Or Messiah ?" |
30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him. |
31 Meanwhile his disciples urged him, "Rabbi, eat something." |
32 But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about." |
33 Then his disciples said to each other, "Could someone have brought him food?" |
34 "My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. |
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. |
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. |
37 Thus the saying 'One sows and another reaps' is true. |
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." |
39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I ever did." |
40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. |
41 And because of his words many more became believers. |
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." |
43 After the two days he left for Galilee. |
44 (Now Jesus himself had pointed out that a prophet has no honor in his own country.) |
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. |
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. |
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. |
48 "Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders," Jesus told him, "you will never believe." |
49 The royal official said, "Sir, come down before my child dies." |
50 Jesus replied, "You may go. Your son will live."
The man took Jesus at his word and departed. |
51 While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living. |
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." |
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. |
54 This was the second miraculous sign that Jesus performed, having come from Judea to Galilee. |
