Immerse: Messiah - Flipbook - Page 425
7:46–8:15
John
413
“We have never heard anyone speak like this!” the guards responded.
“Have you been led astray, too?” the Pharisees mocked. “Is there a single
one of us rulers or Pharisees who believes in him? This foolish crowd follows him, but they are ignorant of the law. God’s curse is on them!”
Then Nicodemus, the leader who had met with Jesus earlier, spoke up.
“Is it legal to convict a man before he is given a hearing?” he asked.
They replied, “Are you from Galilee, too? Search the Scriptures and see
for yourself—no prophet ever comes from Galilee!”
[The most ancient Greek manuscripts do not include John 7:53–8:11.]
Then the meeting broke up, and everybody went home.
Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, but early the next morning he was
back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and
taught them. As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the
Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery.
They put her in front of the crowd.
“Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”
They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use
against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All
right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” Then
he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.
When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning
with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with
the woman. Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are
your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”
“No, Lord,” she said.
And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”
Jesus spoke to the people once more and said, “I am the light of the world.
If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have
the light that leads to life.”
The Pharisees replied, “You are making those claims about yourself!
Such testimony is not valid.”
Jesus told them, “These claims are valid even though I make them about
myself. For I know where I came from and where I am going, but you
don’t know this about me. You judge me by human standards, but I do not
