1-3 More and more people were following Jesus, and his special workers were baptising all those people. Jesus himself didn’t baptise anybody, just his special workers did that. Then Jesus’s enemies, the Pharisee mob, they heard that Jesus had more followers than John had, so they started to watch Jesus. Jesus heard that they were watching him, so he left Judea country, and he went north to Galilee country.

4 On their way to Galilee country, Jesus and his followers had to go through the country called Samaria. 5-8 They walked a long way, then they got to a water-hole. A long time ago, their grand-father, Jacob, dug that water-hole. It was near the land that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.* Genesis 33:19; Joshua 24:32 There was a little town called Sikar near that water-hole, so Jesus’s followers went into the town to buy some food. But Jesus was tired, so he sat down next to that water-hole and waited there.

In the middle of the day, a woman came from the town and got some water from that water-hole. Jesus said to her, “Can you give me a drink?”

9 The woman said, “What? You are a Jew, and I belong to Samaria. So why do you ask me for a drink of water?” You see, the Jews were not friends with the Samaria people.* Ezra 4:1-5; Nehemiah 4:1-2

10 Jesus said to her, “I asked you for a drink of water, but really, you should ask me for a drink. You don’t know who I am, and you don’t know about the good thing that God can give you. If you ask me, I will give you the fresh water that makes people live.”

11 The woman said, “Sir, this water-hole is really deep, and you haven’t got a bucket. How are you going to get that fresh water? 12 Jacob, our grand-father that lived a long time ago, he dug this water-hole for himself, and for his sons, and for all their animals. They all drank this water. Do you think you are greater than Jacob?”

13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone that drinks water from this water-hole will get thirsty again. 14 But if anyone drinks the water that I give them, they will never get thirsty again. That water will keep coming up inside them, like a spring of fresh water, and it will make them live for ever.”

15 The woman said, “Sir, give me that water. I don’t want to get thirsty. I don’t want to have to come here all the time to get water.”

16 Jesus said, “Well, go and get your husband and bring him here.”

17 The woman said, “I haven’t got a husband.”

Jesus said to her, “That’s right. You haven’t got a husband now. 18 You have had 5 different husbands, and the man you live with now is only your boyfriend. You are not married to him. Yes, it’s true, you haven’t got a husband.”

19 The woman said, “Sir, you know all about me. I reckon you are one of those men that get messages from God. 20 So tell me who is right, you Jewish people or us Samaria people? My people have always shown respect to God by doing ceremonies on this mountain. But you Jews say that we have to go to Jerusalem to do those ceremonies and show respect to God. Who is right?”

21 Jesus said to her, “Believe me, a time is coming when it will not matter if you show respect to God, the father, here on this mountain, or in Jerusalem, or anywhere else. 22 You see, you people try to show respect to God, but you don’t really know him. We Jewish people show respect to God, and we know more about him. And God said that he will use a Jewish person to save everybody. 23 Yes, a time is coming when the people that belong to God will show respect to him properly. And that time is happening now. They will know the true story about God, and they will respect him with their spirits. They are the sort of people that my father is looking for, to show him respect. 24 You see, God is a spirit, and the people that really respect him have to know the true story about him, and they have to respect him with their spirits.”

25 The woman said to Jesus, “I know that a special man is coming. He is the man that God promised to send. He is the one called the Messiah, or the Christ. After he comes, he will tell us everything we need to know.”

26 Jesus said to her, “I am that man. Yes, that’s me, the man you are talking to.”

27 Then at that time, Jesus’s followers came back from the town. They saw Jesus and the woman, and they got a shock. He was talking to a woman. They wanted to ask her, “What do you want?” And they wanted to ask Jesus, “Why are you talking to that woman?” But they didn’t say anything.

28 The woman left her bucket next to the water-hole and went back into the town, and she said to the people there, 29 “Come and see a man that told me everything I ever did. Maybe he is the Christ, the special man that God promised to send, the one that we have been waiting for.” 30 The people heard what she said, and they left the town to go and see Jesus.

31 While the woman was in the town talking to the people there, Jesus’s followers said to him, “Teacher, you have to eat something.”

32 But Jesus said to them, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.”

33 So his followers said to each other, “Did somebody give him food while we were away?”

34 Jesus said, “Nobody gave me any food. I do everything my father wants me to do, and that keeps me going. It is like food for me. My father sent me here to do his work, and I want to finish it.

35 Listen. I will tell you this picture story about food plants. You can plant seeds, but then you have to wait about 4 months for them to grow before you can get the food from them. That’s how it is with food plants. But you will not have to wait for people to be ready. A lot of people are ready right now to hear the good news and join God’s family. So there is already work for you to do. You don’t have to wait, like you wait for food plants to grow. 36 Think again about food plants. A worker plants the seeds, and then after they grow up to be big plants, another worker gathers the food from them. And the owner pays both the worker that plants the seeds and the worker that gathers the food. This is a picture of God’s workers. One of them tells people God’s message, and later on, another worker will help those people to believe that message, so that God will take those people into his family and they will live with him for ever. Both of those workers will be really happy when they see people in God’s family, just like both of the workers in the picture story got paid for their work.

37 Sometimes people say, ‘One worker plants the seeds and another worker gathers the food.’ That is true. 38 And just like that, some of God’s other workers have shared God’s story with people, and now I’m sending you to help those people join God’s family. Somebody else told them about God, and now you will see them join God’s family.”

39 The people in the town heard the woman say, “He told me everything I ever did,” and a lot of them believed in Jesus. 40 And so they came from the town to see Jesus, and they asked him to stay with them for a while. So he stayed there for 2 days. 41 He talked to them and told them his message, and even more people believed in him.

42 The town people said to the woman, “We heard what you said about this man, and we believed you. But now we listened to him ourselves, and we know for sure that he is the man that God sent into the world to save people.”

43 Jesus stayed with the people there for 2 days. Then Jesus and his followers left Samaria and went north to Galilee country.

44-45 Galilee is the country where Jesus grew up. Before Jesus went there, he said to his followers, “If God picks a man to tell his messages, the people of that man’s own home town don’t respect him.” But the Galilee people were in Jerusalem at the Passover time, and they saw Jesus do lots of powerful things there, so they were very happy to see him come to Galilee.* Matthew 13:57; Mark 6:4; Luke 4:24; John 2:23

46 Jesus and his followers went again to Cana, the town in Galilee where he changed water into wine. In another town in Galilee, called Capernium, there was a very important man that worked for the government. But his son was very sick.* John 2:1-11 47 This man heard that Jesus came from Judea country to Galilee, so he went to see Jesus, and he asked him to come and make his son better. The boy was so sick that he was nearly dead.

48 Jesus said to him, “If I just talk to you people, you don’t believe me. You only believe me if you see me do something powerful.”

49 The man said, “Sir, please come to my house quickly before my son dies.”

50 Jesus said to him, “You can go home. Your son will get better.”

The man believed Jesus’s words, so he left to go home. 51 The next day, as he got close to his house, his workers met him and told him, “Your son is better.”

52 The man asked his workers, “When did my son get better?”

They said, “The sickness left him yesterday, at about one o’clock in the afternoon.” 53 The man worked out that it was at that same time that Jesus said, “Your son will get better.” So the man, and his family, and everyone that lived in his house, they all believed in Jesus.

54 That was the 2nd time that Jesus went from Judea to Galilee and then did a powerful thing.