---
title: John 4:13
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/john-4-13/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/john-4-13.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: John 4:13
testament: NT
section: Gospels
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# John 4:13

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "Everyone drinking from this water will get thirsty again."

## JW Usage

Witnesses recognise the well-water-versus-living-water contrast as Jesus' offer of spiritual nourishment. In the Watchtower frame, the offer is real but the destination is split: 144,000 receive the heavenly version of the gift, while the great crowd receive an earthly version on a paradise earth. The natural-water and living-water contrast is rarely pressed for the universality of Jesus' addressees.

## Protestant Usage

This verse sets up the universal invitation Jesus makes in verse 14 — and pairs with John 7:37 and Revelation 22:17 as part of one consistent pattern. Jesus is speaking with a Samaritan woman, a social and religious outsider in his own day. He does not require her to convert to Judaism, demonstrate ethnic pedigree, or join a numbered class before the offer is on the table. The well of Sychar is universal — everyone who drinks gets thirsty again. The living water Jesus offers is universal in the same way: anyone who drinks of it is fully provided for. The verse exposes the Watchtower's two-tier system as foreign to the way Jesus actually spoke about the gift of life.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [Revelation 22:17 — "Let Anyone Who Wishes Take Life's Water Free"](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/revelation-22-17-come.md) — Revelation 22:17 / John 7:37–38 [Salvation]