First Stone

Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. What do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

“No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And Jesus called a child to himself and set him among them, and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you change and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

So whoever will humble himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever receives one such child in my name, receives me; but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it is better for him that a heavy millstone be hung around his neck, and that he be drowned in the depths of the sea.

Vasily Polenov - Christ and the Sinner

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