Praise for Deliverance from Oppression

A Vision of Christ

⁹ I, John, your brother who share with you the persecution and the kingdom and the endurance in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.^{[a](A) 10} I was in the spirit^[b] on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet^{(B) 11} saying, “Write in a book what you see, and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamum, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.”

¹² Then I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands,^{(C) 13} and in the midst of the lampstands I saw one like the Son of Man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash across his chest.^{(D) 14} His head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a flame of fire;^{(E) 15} his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of many waters.^{(F) 16} In his right hand he held seven stars, and from his mouth came a sharp, two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining with full force.^(G)

¹⁷ When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he placed his right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last^{(H) 18} and the Living One. I was dead, and see, I am alive forever and ever, and I have the keys of Death and of Hades.^{(I) 19} Now write what you have seen, what is, and what is to take place after this. ²⁰ As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and the seven golden lampstands: the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.^(J)

The Woman Caught in Adultery

[[⁵³ Then each of them went home, 8 ¹ while Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. ² Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and began to teach them. ³ The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and, making her stand before all of them, ⁴ they said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. ⁵ Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”^{(A) 6} They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. ⁷ When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”^{(B) 8} And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. ⁹ When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.^{(C) 10} Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” ¹¹ She said, “No one, sir.”^[a] And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.”]]^[b](D)