Jesus and the Outcast

¹ Now when Jesus knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John ²(although Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples), ³he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. ⁴And it was necessary for him to go through Samaria. ⁵ Now he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the piece of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶And Jacob’s well was there, so Jesus, because he had become tired from the journey, simply sat down at the well. It was about the sixth hour. ⁷ A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me water to drink.” ⁸(For his disciples had gone away into the town so that they could buy food.) ⁹So the Samaritan woman said to him, “How do you, being a Jew, ask from me water to drink, since I am a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) ¹⁰ Jesus answered and said to her, “If you had known the gift of God and who it is who says to you, ‘Give me water to drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” ¹¹The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket and the well is deep! From where then do you get this living water? ¹²You are not greater than our father Jacob, are you, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, and his sons and his livestock?” ¹³ Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again. ¹⁴But whoever drinks of this water which I will give to him will never be thirsty for eternity, but the water which I will give to him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” ¹⁵The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or come here to draw water!” ¹⁶He said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.” ¹⁷The woman answered and said to him, “I do not have a husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have said rightly, ‘I do not have a husband,’ ¹⁸for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you have now is not your husband; this you have said truthfully!” ¹⁹ The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. ²⁰Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where it is necessary to worship.” ²¹Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, that an hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. ²²You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, because salvation is from the Jews. ²³But an hour is coming—and now is here—when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for indeed the Father seeks such people to be his worshipers. ²⁴God is spirit, and the ones who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” ²⁵The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (the one called Christ); “whenever that one comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” ²⁶Jesus said to her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.