em and in the country places near it,
John the Baptist was still preaching and baptizing. But already the
people were leaving John and going to hear Jesus. Some of the followers
of John the Baptist were not pleased as they saw that fewer people came
to their master, and that the crowds were seeking Jesus. But John said
to them: "I told you that I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before
him. Jesus is the Christ, the king. He must grow greater, while I must
grow less; and I am glad that it is so."

Soon after this, Herod Antipas, the king of the province or land of
Galilee, put John in prison. Herod had taken for his wife a woman named
Herodias, who had left her husband to live with Herod, which was very
wicked. John sent word to Herod, that it was not right for him to have
this woman as his wife. These words of John made Herodias very angry.
She hated John, and tried to kill him. Herod himself did not hate John
so greatly, for he knew that John had spoken the truth. But he was weak,
and yielded to his wife Herodias. To please her, he sent John the
Baptist to a lonely prison among the mountains east of the Dead Sea; for
the land in that region, as well as Galilee, was under Herod's rule.
There in prison Herod hoped to keep John safe from the hate of his wife
Herodias.

Soon after John the Baptist was thrown into prison, Jesus left the
country near Jerusalem with his disciples, and went toward Galilee, the
province in the north. Between Judea in the south and Galilee in the
north, lay the land of Samaria, where the Samaritans lived, who hated
the Jews. They worshipped the Lord as the Jews worshipped him, but they
had their own Temple and their own priests. And they had their own
Bible, which was only the five books of Moses; for they would not read
the other books of the old Testament. The Jews and the Samaritans would
scarcely ever speak to each other, so great was the hate between them.

When Jews went from Galilee to Jerusalem, or from Jerusalem to Galilee,
they would not pass through Samaria, but went down the mountains to the
river Jordan, and walked beside the river, in order to go around
Samaria. But Jesus, when he would go from Jerusalem to Galilee, walked
over the mountains straight through Samaria. One morning while he was on
his journey, he stopped to rest beside an old well at the foot of Mount
Gerizim, not far from the city of Shechem, but nearer to a little
village that was called Sychar. This well had