John 4:9-11
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
9 [a]The Samaritan woman said to him, “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?”(A) (For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.) 10 [b]Jesus answered and said to her,(B) “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying 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,[c] you do not even have a bucket and the well is deep; where then can you get this living water?
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- 4:9 Samaritan women were regarded by Jews as ritually impure, and therefore Jews were forbidden to drink from any vessel they had handled.
- 4:10 Living water: the water of life, i.e., the revelation that Jesus brings; the woman thinks of “flowing water,” so much more desirable than stagnant well water. On John’s device of such misunderstanding, cf. note on Jn 3:3.
- 4:11 Sir: the Greek kyrios means “master” or “lord,” as a respectful mode of address for a human being or a deity; cf. Jn 4:19. It is also the word used in the Septuagint for the Hebrew ’adônai, substituted for the tetragrammaton YHWH.
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