January 26, 2026 | Be Connected
Jesus Meets the Woman at the Well
Scripture: John 4:1-26(NIV)
1 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— 2 although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3 So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.
7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
17 “I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
Devotional
It was just an ordinary day for this woman of Samaria. Daily she would fetch water from Jacob’s well. However, this special day would prove to be life changing. She would meet Jesus, the Son of God.
In today’s passage, Jesus leaves Judea and stops in Sychar, “near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph” (v. 4). Resting at a well, Jesus meets this woman who approaches the well to draw water for her household. Jesus asks the woman for a drink of water, but she is startled that a Jewish man would talk to her. She asks Jesus, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink? For Jews do not associate with Samaritans” (v. 9). Jesus answers her that if she knew the gift of God and who is talking to her, she would have asked Him for more than just this well water.
The woman doesn’t understand she is talking to the Son of God. She is just focused on the water in the well. Jesus tells her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (13-14; Rev. 21:6).
The woman tells Jesus, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water” (v. 15).
Jesus tells the woman to go home and bring back her husband. Jesus knows her needs and spiritual condition and reminds her that she already has had five husbands and now living with another man who is not her husband. Exposing her sin, Jesus tells her that “a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks” (v. 23). At the end of their conversation, Jesus tells her who he is. “I, the one speaking to you—I am he” (v. 26). Realizing Jesus is a prophet (the Christ, 6:14), she repents of her sins and acknowledges Jesus as her Messiah. Finally, her thirst for everlasting life has been quenched by her acceptance of Jesus as her Savior.
Like the woman at the well
I was seeking for things that could not satisfy.
And then I heard my Savior speaking
“Draw from My well that never shall run dry….”
Fill my cup, fill it up and make me whole.
(Richard Blanchard)
