Third Sunday in Lent, Year A

⁵ So he came to a city of Samaria, called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son, Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being tired from his journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. ⁷ A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” ⁸ For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. ⁹ The Samaritan woman therefore said to him, “How is it that you, being a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) ¹⁰ Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” ¹¹ The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. So where do you get that living water? ¹² Are you greater than our father, Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his children and his livestock?” ¹³ Jesus answered her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst again; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” ¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I don’t get thirsty, neither come all the way here to draw.” ¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” ¹⁷ The woman answered, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You said well, ‘I have no husband,’ ¹⁸ for you have had five husbands; and he whom you now have is not your husband. This you have said truly.” ¹⁹ The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” ²¹ Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour comes, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, will you worship the Father. ²² You worship that which you don’t know. We worship that which we know; for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such to be his worshipers. ²⁴ God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” ²⁵ The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah comes, he who is called Christ. When he has come, he will declare to us all things.” ²⁶ Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who speaks to you.” ²⁷ At this, his disciples came. They marveled that he was speaking with a woman; yet no one said, “What are you looking for?” or, “Why do you speak with her?” ²⁸ So the woman left her water pot, went away into the city, and said to the people, ²⁹ “Come, see a man who told me everything that I did. Can this be the Christ?” ³⁰ They went out of the city, and were coming to him. ³¹ In the meanwhile, the disciples urged him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” ³² But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.” ³³ The disciples therefore said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” ³⁴ Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. ³⁵ Don’t you say, ‘There are yet four months until the harvest?’ Behold, I tell you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, that they are white for harvest already. ³⁶ He who reaps receives wages and gathers fruit to eternal life; that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. ³⁷ For in this the saying is true, ‘One sows, and another reaps.’ ³⁸ I sent you to reap that for which you haven’t labored. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” ³⁹ From that city many of the Samaritans believed in him because of the word of the woman, who testified, “He told me everything that I did.” ⁴⁰ So when the Samaritans came to him, they begged him to stay with them. He stayed there two days. ⁴¹ Many more believed because of his word. ⁴² They said to the woman, “Now we believe, not because of your speaking; for we have heard for ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.”