Knox Bible

1

And now it became known to Jesus that the Pharisees had been told, Jesus is making more disciples and baptizing a greater number than John;

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although it was his disciples who baptized, not Jesus himself.

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So he left Judaea, and once more withdrew into Galilee.

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And he was obliged to go by way of Samaria.

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Thus he came to a Samaritan city called Sichar, close by the plot of ground which Jacob gave to his son Joseph;✻

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and there was a well there called Jacob’s well. There, then, Jesus sat down, tired after his journey, by the well; it was about noon.

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And when a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, Give me some to drink.

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(His disciples were away in the city at this time, buying food.)

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Whereupon the Samaritan woman said to him, How is it that thou, who art a Jew, dost ask me, a Samaritan, to give thee drink? (The Jews, you must know, have no dealings with the Samaritans.)

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Jesus answered her, If thou knewest what it is God gives, and who this is that is saying to thee, Give me drink, it would have been for thee to ask him instead, and he would have given thee living water.

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Sir, the woman said to him, thou hast no bucket, and the well is deep; how then canst thou provide living water?

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Art thou a greater man than our father Jacob? It was he who gave us this well; he himself and his sons and his cattle have drunk out of it.

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Jesus answered her, Anyone who drinks such water as this will be thirsty again afterwards, the man who drinks the water I give him will not know thirst any more.

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The water I give him will be a spring of water within him, that flows continually to bring him everlasting life.

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Then, Sir, said the woman, give me water such as that, so that I may never be thirsty and have to come here for water again.

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At this, Jesus said to her, Go home, fetch thy husband, and come back here.

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I have no husband, answered the woman; and Jesus told her, True enough, thou hast no husband.

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Thou hast had five husbands, but the man who is with thee now is no husband of thine; thou hast told the truth over this.

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The woman said to him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.

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Well, it was our fathers’ way to worship on this mountain, although you tell us that the place where men ought to worship is in Jerusalem.

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Believe me, woman, Jesus said to her, the time is coming when you will not go to this mountain, nor yet to Jerusalem, to worship the Father.

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You worship you cannot tell what, we worship knowing what it is we worship; salvation, after all, is to come from the Jews;

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but the time is coming, nay, has already come, when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth; such men as these the Father claims for his worshippers.

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God is a spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

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Yes, said the woman, I know that Messias (that is, the Christ) is to come; and when he comes, he will tell us everything.

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Jesus said to her, I, who speak to thee, am the Christ.

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With that, his disciples came up, and were surprised to find him talking to a woman; but none of them asked, What meanest thou? or Why art thou talking to her?

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And so the woman put down her water-pot, and went back to the city, to tell the folk there,

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Come and have sight of a man who has told me all the story of my life; can this be the Christ?

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So they left the city, and came out to find him.

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Meanwhile, his disciples were urging him, Master, take some food.

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But he told them, I have food to eat of which you know nothing.

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Whereupon his disciples said to one another, Can somebody have brought him food?

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But Jesus said to them, My meat is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish the task he gave me.

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Is it not a saying of yours, It is four whole months before harvest comes? Why, lift up your eyes, I tell you, and look at the fields, they are white with the promise of harvest already.✻

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The wages paid to him who reaps this harvest, the crop he gathers in, is eternal life, in which sower and reaper are to rejoice together.

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And here the proverb fits, which is true enough, One man sows, and another reaps.

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The harvest I have sent you out to reap is one on which you bestowed no labour; others have laboured, and it is their labours you have inherited.

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Many of the Samaritans from that city came to believe in him through the woman’s testimony, He told me all the story of my life.

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

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Many more of them came to believe through his preaching;

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It is not through thy report, they told the woman, that we believe now; we have heard him for ourselves, and we recognize that he is indeed the Saviour of the world.

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Then, after two days, he passed on and returned to Galilee.

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Jesus himself bore witness that it is in his own country a prophet goes unhonoured.✻

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And now, when he came into Galilee, the Galileans too made him welcome, because they had seen what he did in Jerusalem at the time of the feast; they had gone up to the feast like himself.

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And so he came once more to Cana of Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. And a nobleman, whose son was lying sick at Capharnaum,

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hearing that Jesus had come from Judaea to Galilee, went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, who was at the point of death.

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Jesus said to him, You must see signs and miracles happen, or you will not believe.

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Sir, the nobleman said to him, come down before my child dies.

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Go back home, Jesus told him; thy son is to live. And the man began his journey home, putting his trust in the words Jesus had spoken to him;

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and while he was still on his way down, his servants met him with the message that his son was still alive.

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So he asked what time it had been when he felt easier; and they told him, He recovered from his fever yesterday, at the seventh hour.

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The father recognized that it had happened at the very time when Jesus said to him, Thy son is to live; and he and all his household found faith.

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Thus for the second time Jesus did a miracle upon his return from Judaea to Galilee.