John 4:7–8. Then a woman from Samaria (actually from the town of Sychar; she was only a native of the capital of that land, Samaria) comes to draw water from the well. Jesus says to her, ‘Woman, give Me a drink!’ For His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.
While I am still waiting in vain for a vessel from the little village, a Samaritan woman from Sychar comes as if summoned, carrying a jar. She wants to fetch a delicious, refreshing drink for the hot day from Jacob’s well, whose water was very fresh. At first she paid no attention to Me at all. Only after she had drawn her jar full of water up from the well on a cord do I address her and say, ‘Woman, I am very thirsty; give Me a drink from your jar!’
John 4:9. The Samaritan woman now says to Jesus, ‘How can You ask me for water to drink, when You are plainly a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman? For the (proud) Jews have no dealings with us poor Samaritans!’
The woman opened her eyes wide when she sees that I am a Jew, and after a while says, ‘You must also be one of those who met me on the way into town and asked where food could be bought there? They were proud Jews. You are certainly a Jew too, as Your clothing reveals, and I am a Samaritan woman! How can You ask me to give You water to drink? Is that it, you proud Jews: in need even a poor Samaritan woman would be good enough for you, but otherwise you have neither eyes nor ears for us! Yes, if I could drown all Judea with this jar of water, I would give You a drink from it with great pleasure. Otherwise I would rather see You die of thirst than offer You even a single drop of water from this jar!’
John 4:10. Jesus answered her, ‘If you recognized the gift of God and who it is that says to you, “Give Me a drink,” you would ask Him, and He would give you living water to drink.’
I say, ‘You speak this way because you are blind in your understanding. If your understanding had open sight and you recognized the gift of God and Him who speaks to you and has said, “Woman, give Me a drink,” you would fall down before Him and ask Him for true water! And He would give you living water to drink. I tell you: whoever believes Me in what I say to him, from his body will flow streams of that same living water, as is written in Isaiah 44:3 and Joel 3:1.’
John 4:11. The woman says, ‘Lord, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where else would You get living water?’
The woman says, ‘You seem to be well versed in Scripture! But as I can tell from Your request for a drink of water from my jar, You certainly have no vessel with which to draw water from this well. Nor can You reach the water with Your hand, for the well is deep and no one can reach down to the water with his hand. So I would like to know by what skill You could obtain it from anywhere else! (Or are You perhaps even hinting that You desire to have an affair with me? I am certainly still young enough, and attractive too, for I am not yet thirty years old! But such a desire on the part of a Jew for a most despised Samaritan woman would be too great a miracle, since you prefer animals to us Samaritan people! Truly, You could never persuade me to that!)’
John 4:12. Are You, then, greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this precious well, from which he, his children and his livestock drank?
‘Who and what are You, then, that You dare speak to me this way? Are You perhaps even greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well, from which he, his children and his livestock drank? What do You make Yourself out to be? Look, I am a poor woman, for if I were rich I would not come myself in this heat to fetch a refreshing drink. Would You, as a Jew, make me still more wretched than I already am? Look at my clothes, which barely suffice to cover my nakedness, and it will be clear to You that I am very poor! How can You ask that I, a poor, wretched woman, should even beg You to be allowed to serve You, a proud Jew, in lust? Shame on You if that were Your intention! Yet You do not look that way to me, so I do not wish to have said that to You in complete earnest. But since You have begun speaking to me, explain clearly what You mean by Your living water!’
John 4:13. Jesus answered her, ‘Whoever drinks the water of this well will in time be thirsty again.’
I say, ‘I did tell you that you are blind in your understanding, and so it is indeed understandable that you cannot and will not understand Me. Look, I also told you: whoever believes My words, from his loins will flow streams of living water! Look, I have already been in this world for thirty years and have never touched a woman. How, then, should I suddenly wish to desire you? O blind fool! And even if I did have an affair with you, you would certainly become thirsty again and have to drink to quench your thirst. But if I offered you living water, it is surely clear that by it I meant to quench the thirst of life forever! For look, My word, My teaching, is such water.’
John 4:14. But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst for all eternity; for the water I shall give him will become within him a spring of water whose water will well up into eternal life.
‘Whoever drinks the natural water of this or any other well will become thirsty again in a short time. But the water I give someone will become within him a spring of water whose water wells up into eternal life.
Look, you take Me for a proud, arrogant Jew, and look, I am gentle with My whole soul and filled through and through with the deepest humility. But My living water is precisely this humility itself. Whoever therefore does not become as humble as I Myself am will have no share in the kingdom of God, which has now come down to earth.
At the same time, the water of life offered to you is also the only true knowledge of God and of eternal life from God. It thus wells up from God, the life of all life, into the human being as eternal life, and becomes there an inexhaustible, eternally abiding life that wells back into the life of God and brings about in God one and the same most freely active life. Look, such is the water I offer you. How can you misunderstand Me so completely?’
John 4:15. The woman says to Him, ‘Lord, then give me such water, so that I may never thirst and no longer need to come here to draw water (which is very burdensome for me).’
The woman says, ‘Then give me such water, so that I may never thirst and no longer have to come this burdensome way to draw water from this well! For look, I live at the other end of town and therefore have a very long way to come here!’
John 4:16. Jesus says to her, ‘Go, call your husband and come here (with him)!’
I say, ‘O woman, you are exceedingly stupid! There is no talking with you, since you have no inkling of spiritual things. But go into town, call your husband and come back here with him. I will speak with him; he will surely understand Me better than you! Or is your husband also like you, wishing likewise to quench his body’s natural thirst with the spiritual water of humility?’