After the Passover, Jesus and His disciples went back to Galilee. This time they went through the country called Samaria. The Jews at this time despised the Samaritans because they were descended from Israelites who married Assyrians hundreds of years back when Assyria had captured the northern kingdom.
While in Samaria, Jesus and his disciples came to a well that their ancestor Jacob had dug. It was about noon. Jesus was tired, so He sat down by the well while His disciples went into town to buy food. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “May I please have a drink?” She was astounded. “You’re a Jewish man, and I’m a Samaritan woman, so how can You ask me for a drink?” (For Jews had nothing to do with Samaritans.) Jesus said, “If you knew the gift of God and Who it is that is asking you for a drink, you would have asked Him . . . and He would have given you living water.” She replied, “Sir, you don’t have a bucket and this well is very deep. Where would you get this living water?” Jesus explained, “When a person drinks water from this well, he gets thirsty again. But whoever drinks the water I give him, will never be thirsty again. The water I give him will become a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” “Sir, give me this water so I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming back to this well to draw water.”
“Go call your husband, and come back here,” said Jesus. “I have no husband,” she told him. “You’re right,” Jesus said. “You have had five husbands, and you are not married to the man you’re living with right now.” “Sir, I can see you are a prophet. My ancestors sacrificed to God on this mountain, but you Jews say that Jerusalem is the place where people should worship.” Jesus said, “A time is coming when you will not worship in either place. The hour is coming and is now here when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman replied, “Well, I know the Messiah is coming, and when He does, He’ll explain everything to us.” Then Jesus plainly told her, “I who speak to you am He.”
The woman left her water jar by the well and went back to town to tell everybody. “Come see the Man who told me everything I’ve ever done! Can He be the Messiah?” So they came back with her to the well to see Jesus. Many of them believed in Jesus because of what the woman said, and they begged Him not to leave right away. So Jesus stayed for two days, teaching the people, and even more of them believed in Him. And they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not because of what you said. Now, we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Christ, the Savior of the world.”