Passage

John 4.25-26

Book: John · ASV

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV (ASV)

"23. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth: for such doth the Father seek to be his worshippers. 24. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth."

"25. The woman saith unto him, I know that Messiah cometh (he that is called Christ): when he is come, he will declare unto us all things. 26. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he."

"27. And upon this came his disciples; and they marvelled that he was speaking with a woman; yet no man said, What seekest thou? or, Why speakest thou with her? 28. So the woman left her waterpot, and went away into the city, and saith to the people," (John 4:23-28, ASV)

WEB (WEB)

"23. But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such to be his worshipers. 24. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”"

"25. The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah comes, he who is called Christ. When he has come, he will declare to us all things.” 26. Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who speaks to you.”"

"27. At this, his disciples came. They marveled that he was speaking with a woman; yet no one said, “What are you looking for?” or, “Why do you speak with her?” 28. So the woman left her water pot, and went away into the city, and said to the people," (John 4:23-28, WEB)

KJV (KJV)

"23. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. 24. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."

"25. The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things. 26. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he."

"27. And upon this came his disciples, and marvelled that he talked with the woman: yet no man said, What seekest thou? or, Why talkest thou with her? 28. The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men," (John 4:23-28, KJV)

YLT (YLT)

"23. but, there cometh an hour, and it now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father also doth seek such to worship him; 24. God [is] a Spirit, and those worshipping Him, in spirit and truth it doth behove to worship.'"

"25. The woman saith to him, 'I have known that Messiah doth come, who is called Christ, when that one may come, he will tell us all things;' 26. Jesus saith to her, 'I am [he], who am speaking to thee.'"

"27. And upon this came his disciples, and were wondering that with a woman he was speaking, no one, however, said, 'What seekest thou?' or 'Why speakest thou with her?' 28. The woman then left her water-jug, and went away to the city, and saith to the men," (John 4:23-28, YLT)

Setting

Speaker: the Samaritan woman of Sychar; Jesus (the climactic Christological self-disclosure)
Audience: initially the woman alone (the disciples arrive in v. 27); the Samaritans of Sychar in the narrative-aftermath (vv. 28-42); the Johannine readership
Location: Jacob's Well, at Sychar in Samaria
Time period: events c. AD 27-28 (early Galilean-to-Judean transit); composed c. AD 85-95
Narrative context: the climax of the Samaritan-woman dialogue (John 4:1-42). Jesus has progressively revealed Himself through layered exchanges (living water, the woman's marital history, true worship); the final move is the explicit Messianic self-disclosure, the first such direct self-disclosure to anyone in the Fourth Gospel, and to a Samaritan woman.

Theological reading

John 4:25-26 is the Fourth Gospel's first explicit Messianic self-disclosure by Jesus, and it goes to a doubly-marginalized recipient (a Samaritan, a woman) before any equivalent disclosure to a Jewish-male audience. The verbal architecture is loaded. The woman says (legei) that Messiah is called (legomenos) Christ, the Johannine translation-construction signaling the Aramaic / Greek bridge, and that He will declare (anaggelei) all things. Jesus answers: "I that speak (lalōn) unto thee am he" (egō eimi, ho lalōn soi). The Greek egō eimi ("I am") is the same divine-name-construction used at the climax of John 8:58, and the Johannine pattern uses it across the I-AM sayings (6:35; 8:12; 10:7, 11; 11:25; 14:6; 15:1). The woman expected a future legein ("He will declare"); Jesus's reply collapses the future into the present: the One who is speaking (lalōn) to her right now is the Messiah whose disclosure-act she awaited. The Samaritan-Messianic expectation centered on Taheb (the Restorer), the prophet-like-Moses of Deut 18:15-18 who would declare all things; Jesus's egō eimi claim is, in Samaritan-Messianic register, the explicit identification of Himself as that figure. The verse-set establishes the Johannine pattern: Jesus's legein (saying) and lalein (speaking) are themselves the eschatological disclosure-event the OT anticipated.

Key words

G3004 - lego, legō (Strong's G3004), the legei speech-tags structuring the exchange (the woman says, Jesus says) and the legomenos naming-construction (Messiah, called Christ); paired with laleō (lalōn, the act of speaking) in Jesus's reply.

Quoted in

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.