been dug by Jacob, the
great father or ancestor of the Israelites, many hundreds of years
before. It was an old well then in the days of Jesus; and it is much
older now; for the same well may be seen in that place still. Even now
travelers may have a drink from Jacob's well.

It was early in the morning, about sunrise, when Jesus was sitting by
Jacob's well. He was very tired, for he had walked a long journey; he
was hungry, and his disciples had gone to the village near at hand to
buy food. He was thirsty, too; and as he looked into the well he could
see the water a hundred feet below, but he had no rope with which to let
down a cup or a jar to draw up some water to drink.

Just at this moment a Samaritan woman came to the well, with her
water-jar upon her head, and her rope in her hand. Jesus looked at her,
and in one glance read her soul, and saw all her life.

He knew that Jews did not often speak to Samaritans, but he said to her:

"Please to give me a drink?"

The woman saw from his looks and his dress that he was a Jew, and she
said to him:

"How is it that you, who are a Jew, ask drink of me, a Samaritan
woman?"

Jesus answered her:

"If you knew what God's free gift is, and if you knew who it is that
says to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would ask him to give you living
water, and he would give it to you."

There was something in the words and the looks of Jesus which made the
woman feel that he was not a common man. She said to him: "Sir, you have
nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where can you get that
living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who drank from this
well, and who gave it to us?"

"Whoever drinks of this water," said Jesus, "shall thirst again, but
whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst;
but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water
springing up unto everlasting life."

"Sir," said the woman, "give me some of this water of yours, so that I
will not thirst any more, nor come all the way to this well."

Jesus looked at the woman, and said to her, "Go home, and bring your
husband, and come here."

"I have no husband," answered the woman.

"Yes," said Jesus, "you have spoken the truth. You have no husband. But
you have had five husbands, and the man whom you now have is not your
husband."

The woman was filled with wonder as she heard this. She saw that here
was a man who knew what others could not know