Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Adultery and hypocrisy

⁵³ They all went off home,

8 and Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. ² In the morning he went back to the Temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them.

³ The scribes and Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught out in adultery. They stood her out in the middle.

⁴ “Teacher,” they said to him. “This woman was caught in the very act of adultery. ⁵ In the law, Moses commanded us to stone people like this. What do you say?”

⁶ They said this to test him, so that they could frame a charge against him.

Jesus squatted down and wrote with his finger on the ground. ⁷ When they went on pressing the question, he got up and said to them, “Whichever of you is without sin should throw the first stone at her.”

⁸ And once again he squatted down and wrote on the ground.

⁹ When they heard that, they went off one by one, beginning with the oldest. Jesus was left alone, with the woman still standing there.

¹⁰ Jesus looked up.

“Where are they, woman?” he asked. “Hasn’t anybody condemned you?”

¹¹ “Nobody, sir,” she replied.

“Well, then,” said Jesus, “I don’t condemn you either! Off you go—and from now on don’t sin again!”