John 4: 1- 30, The Woman at Jacob's Well

Part 1 (verses 1-8)

The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John, although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.

Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

To even speak to this woman is scandalous. To speak to any woman unaccompanied by her father, brother, husband or other male relation is to imply a sexual interest.

To drink from her Samaritan hands would have - according to the Pharisees - made any faithful Jew impure. She is spiritually polluted.

Yet Jesus asks her for a drink.

Despite instructions to his disciples to avoid Samaritan towns, Jesus has traveled into the heart of Samaria, into the shadow of Mt. Gerizim.

Despite a clear religious code separating male from female and Jew from Samaritan, Jesus seeks sustenance from her.