John 4

Part of Signs and Discourses📖 John introduction

Read the chapter

¹When Jesus realized that the Pharisees were aware He was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John ✦ ²(although it was not Jesus who baptized, but His disciples), ✦ ³He left Judea and returned to Galilee. ✦ ⁴Now He had to pass through Samaria. ✦ ⁵So He came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ✦ ⁶Since Jacob’s well was there, Jesus, weary from His journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. ✦ ⁷When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” ✦ ⁸(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) ✦ ⁹“You are a Jew,” said the woman. “How can You ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) ✦ ¹⁰Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God and who is asking you for a drink, you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” ✦ ¹¹“Sir,” the woman replied, “You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where then will You get this living water? ✦ ¹²Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock?” ✦ ¹³Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. ✦ ¹⁴But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a fount of water springing up to eternal life.” ✦ ¹⁵The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water so that I will not get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” ✦ ¹⁶Jesus told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” ✦ ¹⁷“I have no husband,” the woman replied. Jesus said to her, “You are correct to say that you have no husband. ¹⁸In fact, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. You have spoken truthfully.” ✦ ¹⁹“Sir,” the woman said, “I see that You are a prophet. ✦ ²⁰Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews say that the place where one must worship is in Jerusalem.” ✦ ²¹“Believe Me, woman,” Jesus replied, “a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ✦ ²²You worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. ✦ ²³But a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such as these to worship Him. ✦ ²⁴God is Spirit, and His worshipers must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” ✦ ²⁵The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When He comes, He will explain everything to us.” ✦ ²⁶Jesus answered, “I who speak to you am He.” ✦ ²⁷Just then His disciples returned and were surprised that He was speaking with a woman. But no one asked Him, “What do You want from her?” or “Why are You talking with her?” ✦ ²⁸Then the woman left her water jar, went back into the town, and said to the people, ✦ ²⁹“Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” ✦ ³⁰So they left the town and made their way toward Jesus. ✦ ³¹Meanwhile the disciples urged Him, “Rabbi, eat something.” ✦ ³²But He told them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” ✦ ³³So the disciples asked one another, “Could someone have brought Him food?” ✦ ³⁴Jesus explained, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work. ✦ ³⁵Do you not say, ‘There are still four months until the harvest’? I tell you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are ripe for harvest. ✦ ³⁶Already the reaper draws his wages and gathers a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may rejoice together. ✦ ³⁷For in this case the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. ✦ ³⁸I sent you to reap what you have not worked for; others have done the hard work, and now you have taken up their labor.” ✦ ³⁹Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in Jesus because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” ✦ ⁴⁰So when the Samaritans came to Him, they asked Him to stay with them, and He stayed two days. ✦ ⁴¹And many more believed because of His message. ✦ ⁴²They said to the woman, “We now believe not only because of your words; we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man truly is the Savior of the world.” ✦ ⁴³After two days, Jesus left for Galilee. ✦ ⁴⁴Now He Himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown. ✦ ⁴⁵Yet when He arrived, the Galileans welcomed Him. They had seen all the great things He had done in Jerusalem at the feast, for they had gone there as well. ✦ ⁴⁶So once again He came to Cana in Galilee, where He had turned the water into wine. And there was a royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. ✦ ⁴⁷When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged Him to come down and heal his son, who was about to die. ✦ ⁴⁸Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will never believe.” ✦ ⁴⁹“Sir,” the official said, “come down before my child dies.” ✦ ⁵⁰“Go,” said Jesus. “Your son will live.” The man took Jesus at His word and departed. ✦ ⁵¹And while he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was alive. ✦ ⁵²So he inquired as to the hour when his son had recovered, and they told him, “The fever left him yesterday at the seventh hour.” ⁵³Then the father realized that this was the very hour in which Jesus had told him, “Your son will live.” And he and all his household believed. ✦ ⁵⁴This was now the second sign that Jesus performed after coming from Judea into Galilee. ✦

Tap any verse for its study page. Underlined terms mark a concept, person, or place; ✦ marks verses with cross-references.

In this chapter

Theme Living Water

Where this chapter connects

John 4 ·34 John 6 ·14 John 1 ·13 John 3 ·8 John 11 ·8 Luke 9 ·7 John 2 ·7 Luke 2 ·6

Christ at the center

John declares him plainly: the eternal Word made flesh, the Lamb of God, the great 'I AM' — bread, light, door, shepherd, way, truth, life, resurrection — that you may believe and have life in his name.

How John 4 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.

Resources, by level

Lay

★ Start hereDocumentaryFollowing the MessiahAppian Media · Free · evangelical
A free, beautifully shot 10-part series walking the lands of Jesus' life — Bethlehem, Galilee, Jerusalem, and more.
★ Start hereVideoBibleProject — video overviews & word studiesBibleProject · 5–10 min · Free · evangelical
Free animated overviews of every book of the Bible, plus themes and Hebrew/Greek word studies — the best visual on-ramp to any book. (Biblical-theology, broadly evangelical, not distinctly Reformed.)
★ Start hereAudioThrough the WordThrough the Word · ~10 min/chapter · Free · evangelical
A clear ~10-minute audio teaching for every one of the Bible's 1,189 chapters — the most systematic free way to study chapter by chapter.
DocumentaryHolyLandSiteHolyLandSite · Free · evangelical
Free on-location videos tying biblical events to the actual sites in Israel — the Temple Mount, Galilee, Capernaum, and more.
ApologeticsCold-Case Christianity (J. Warner Wallace)J. Warner Wallace · Free · evangelical
A cold-case homicide detective examines the Gospels' reliability — forensic faith for skeptics and seekers.

Pastoral

★ Start hereSermonMLJ Trust — Martyn Lloyd-Jones sermonsMartyn Lloyd-Jones · Free · reformed
1,600+ free sermons from "the Doctor," including landmark verse-by-verse series (Romans, John, Ephesians, Acts) — a gold standard of expository preaching.
SermonGrace to You — John MacArthurJohn MacArthur · Free · reformed
Decades of careful verse-by-verse expository sermons, especially through the New Testament. (MacArthur, d. 2025; archive remains free.)
SermonGospel in Life — Tim KellerTim Keller · Free · reformed
Tim Keller's gospel-centered preaching — sermons stream free (the complete downloadable archive is paid).
ArticleRecommended NT commentaries (9Marks / Schreiner)Thomas R. Schreiner · Free · reformed
A trusted pastor-oriented guide to the best commentary on each New Testament book.
SermonChuck Smith — C2000 SeriesChuck Smith · Free · evangelical
Free verse-by-verse audio through the entire Bible from the founder of Calvary Chapel.
VideoVerse By Verse Ministry InternationalVerse By Verse Ministry Int'l · Free · evangelical
In-depth, verse-by-verse expository teaching book-by-book — strong for working straight through a whole New Testament book.
VideoLook at the Book — John PiperJohn Piper · Free · reformed
Watch Piper trace the logic of a passage phrase by phrase on screen — a model of close reading.

Seminary

★ Start hereApologeticsGary Habermas — the resurrectionGary Habermas · Free · evangelical
130+ free videos and lectures from the scholar behind the "minimal facts" method — the start-here on the historical evidence for the resurrection. (Only his books are paid.)
★ Start hereCommentaryThe Gospel According to John (Pillar NT Commentary)D. A. Carson · ~720 pp · Paid · reformed
The go-to mid-level exegetical commentary on John — rigorous and readable.

Commentaries & study tools

VideoBibleProject — John videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
VideoWatch teaching on John 4YouTube · Lay · Free
Sermons and chapter teaching from across YouTube.
CommentaryEnduring Word — John 4David Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical
Readable, verse-by-verse exposition of the whole chapter.
CommentaryMatthew Henry on JohnMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
ReferenceBlue Letter Bible — John 4Blue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free
Interlinear, lexicon, and study tools across the chapter.

← John 3 John 5 →