John 4:20

The woman is ashamed, and seeks to change the conversation. Our Lord kindly permits it, knowing that the words He has spoken will bear fruit. She asks Him, since He is a prophet, to pronounce upon the main point in dispute between the Jews and the Samaritans. The Samaritans argued from Deuteronomy 27:4 that Grerizim was the one divinely appointed place of sacrifice, because there God had commanded an altar to be raised and the Law inscribed. The Samaritan text reads Gerizim in this passage instead of Ebal.

21-24. Speaking as a prophet, our Lord draws a sublime picture of the religion of the future. All that is transitory, national, local, and ceremonial about the religion of Jerusalem and Gerizim is to pass away, and God will accept for the future only the worship of the spirit and the heart. In the meantime, however, Jerusalem, not Gerizim, is the true centre of worship, there Jehovah has placed His name, there the Redeemer is to suffer, and there His religion is to be first established.