Psalm 38:1–3, 9–11, 21–22

¹O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger,
nor discipline me in your wrath!
²For your arrows have sunk into me,
and your hand has come down on me.
³There is no soundness in my flesh
because of your indignation;
there is no health in my bones
because of my sin.

⁹O Lord, all my longing is before you;
my sighing is not hidden from you.
¹⁰My heart throbs; my strength fails me,
and the light of my eyes—it also has gone from me.
¹¹My friends and companions stand aloof from my plague,
and my nearest kin stand far off.

²¹Do not forsake me, O Lord!
O my God, be not far from me!
²²Make haste to help me,
O Lord, my salvation!

Old Testament Reading Job 7

¹“Has not man a hard service on earth,
and are not his days like the days of a hired hand?
²Like a slave who longs for the shadow,
and like a hired hand who looks for his wages,
³so I am allotted months of emptiness,
and nights of misery are apportioned to me.
⁴When I lie down I say, ‘When shall I arise?’
But the night is long,
and I am full of tossing till the dawn.
⁵My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt;
my skin hardens, then breaks out afresh.
⁶My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle
and come to their end without hope.
⁷“Remember that my life is a breath;
my eye will never again see good.
⁸The eye of him who sees me will behold me no more;
while your eyes are on me, I shall be gone.
⁹As the cloud fades and vanishes,
so he who goes down to Sheol does not come up;
¹⁰he returns no more to his house,
nor does his place know him anymore.
¹¹“Therefore I will not restrain my mouth;
I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;
I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
¹²Am I the sea, or a sea monster,
that you set a guard over me?
¹³When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me,
my couch will ease my complaint,’
¹⁴then you scare me with dreams
and terrify me with visions,
¹⁵so that I would choose strangling
and death rather than my bones.
¹⁶I loathe my life; I would not live forever.
Leave me alone, for my days are a breath.
¹⁷What is man, that you make so much of him,
and that you set your heart on him,
¹⁸visit him every morning
and test him every moment?
¹⁹How long will you not look away from me,
nor leave me alone till I swallow my spit?
²⁰If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of mankind?
Why have you made me your mark?
Why have I become a burden to you?
²¹Why do you not pardon my transgression
and take away my iniquity?
For now I shall lie in the earth;
you will seek me, but I shall not be.”

New Testament Reading John 4:7–26

⁷There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” ⁸(For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) ⁹The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) ¹⁰Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” ¹¹The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? ¹²Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” ¹³Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” ¹⁵The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

¹⁶Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” ¹⁷The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; ¹⁸for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” ¹⁹The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. ²⁰Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” ²¹Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. ²²You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. ²⁴God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” ²⁵The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” ²⁶Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”