John 4

Part of Signs and Discourses📖 John introduction

Read the chapter

¹So then, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that He was making and baptizing more disciples than John ✦ ²(although Jesus Himself was not baptizing; rather, His disciples were), ✦ ³He left Judea and went away again to Galilee. ✦ ⁴And He had to pass through Samaria. ✦ ⁵So He *came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the parcel of land that Jacob gave to his son Joseph; ✦ ⁶and Jacob’s well was there. So Jesus, tired from His journey, was just sitting by the well. It was about the sixth hour. ✦ ⁷A woman of Samaria *came to draw water. Jesus *said to her, “Give Me a drink.” ✦ ⁸For His disciples had gone away to the city to buy food. ✦ ⁹So the Samaritan woman *said to Him, “How is it that You, though You are a Jew, are asking me for a drink, though I am a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) ✦ ¹⁰Jesus replied to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who is saying to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” ✦ ¹¹She *said to Him, “Sir, You have no bucket and the well is deep; 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 of it himself, and his sons and his cattle?” ✦ ¹³Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again; ✦ ¹⁴but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never be thirsty; but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life.” ✦ ¹⁵The woman *said to Him, “Sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty, nor come all the way here to draw water.” ✦ ¹⁶He *said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.” ✦ ¹⁷The woman answered and said to Him, “I have no husband.” Jesus *said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; ¹⁸for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this which you have said is true.” ✦ ¹⁹The woman *said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. ✦ ²⁰Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and yet you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one must worship.” ✦ ²¹Jesus *said to her, “Believe Me, woman, that a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ✦ ²²You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews. ✦ ²³But a time is coming, and even now has arrived, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. ✦ ²⁴God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” ✦ ²⁵The woman *said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.” ✦ ²⁶Jesus *said to her, “I am He, the One speaking to you.” ✦ ²⁷And at this point His disciples came, and they were amazed that He had been speaking with a woman, yet no one said, “What are You seeking?” or, “Why are You speaking with her?” ✦ ²⁸So the woman left her waterpot and went into the city, and *said to the people, ✦ ²⁹“Come, see a Man who told me all the things that I have done; this is not the Christ, is He?” ✦ ³⁰They left the city and were coming to Him. ✦ ³¹Meanwhile the disciples were urging Him, saying, “Rabbi, eat something.” ✦ ³²But He said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” ✦ ³³So the disciples were saying to one another, “No one brought Him anything to eat, did he?” ✦ ³⁴Jesus *said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to accomplish His work. ✦ ³⁵Do you not say, ‘There are still four months, and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I tell you, raise your eyes and observe the fields, that they are white for harvest. ✦ ³⁶Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that the one who sows and the one who reaps may rejoice together. ✦ ³⁷For in this case the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’ ✦ ³⁸I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have come into their labor.” ✦ ³⁹Now from that city many of the Samaritans believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all the things that I have done.” ✦ ⁴⁰So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they were asking Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. ✦ ⁴¹Many more believed because of His word; ✦ ⁴²and they were saying to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One truly is the Savior of the world.” ✦ ⁴³And after the two days, He departed from there for Galilee. ✦ ⁴⁴For Jesus Himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country. ✦ ⁴⁵So when He came to Galilee, the Galileans received Him, only because they had seen all the things that He did in Jerusalem at the feast; for they themselves also went to the feast. ✦ ⁴⁶Therefore He came again to Cana of Galilee, where He had made the water into wine. And there was a royal official whose son was sick at Capernaum. ✦ ⁴⁷When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea into Galilee, he went to Him and began asking Him to come down and heal his son; for he was at the point of death. ✦ ⁴⁸Then Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe.” ✦ ⁴⁹The royal official *said to Him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” ✦ ⁵⁰Jesus *said to him, “Go; your son is alive.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went home. ✦ ⁵¹And as he was now going down, his slaves met him, saying that his son was alive. ✦ ⁵²So he inquired of them the hour when he began to get better. Then they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” ⁵³So the father knew that it was at that hour in which Jesus said to him, “Your son is alive”; and he himself believed, and his entire household. ✦ ⁵⁴This is again a second sign that Jesus performed when He had come 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 →